


' V ■ 





m 












Gass ~P Z, T 

Book_iXz_2i4i£ 

Coi)yiightN?_^£i^ 


COEWiJGllT DEPOSm 













t • 


*0. 














- j • I A fwf 


IT®? 


'V 








rA'-' 




..<*:• kr 




jssa 


!LVn' 


fl 


■^''•1 X^l 






V** ' ^•- 


m 

.i-....*v ‘ .' ' 1 


'M 


‘•i>j 


fe>: 






;^: ’:u. 


'.f«l.' 








I'« 






A iV'y 




l/'4 




C*. 


.J »• f:-. 


mm 


t . 


'< » ■- 












•Vi 








< a:* 


y/i 


y. i. 


t*'* 


'-V. 


V. 


‘ > 




v?l 


■>A 










■ li 


.5 


■> t .'t 




/*r-'; 




A./« 




m. ■ i 




it 




.\. 


' 1 ‘ •K. 










• I 


.'. vV;'* "-i 


' i-' -^#pw 






t-7j^ 


» '/ 






\y 


n 


( . • 




* • " ^ • t . 1 

u< .1 I -.>• .<» '■. I 

‘ ' • • '.' ^ »:1 

r' 'H I «■ 








‘ •--’! S'l'-lJv 


4S 






/ ‘ 






j. • • I « 








1^ 


.‘>V 


va- 




I /- f 


^ ■?' 


A.-:> 


i4,/J 


;.sV 




‘^““f. r 


\j 


*.r< 






: Mi 


A*>’ 




f V 








:u> 


’ I 




' 'I' . 


' 


. .•¥ 1 ^* 


l^J 


I'*,! 


i ' 


V.' 




m 




4-4 




V/ 


1 ^ 


‘•iV:.:v; 


Cf 


h 






•<*.' • 


’J.?, 




/'• • • _ i'j 


1/ 


f.- 




■<. f 


it*-. 


•. > ji' * 


:AC; 


vWi 




t 




i ■: J* 






■■v* 






iiaaMi 


t\ 




'4- 




'i|^; 




.■« 


•E 




A ^'j 


‘T » 


.^1 


'•ij! 


>r 


-PJ 








liVl 


,* ’ t 




:c 




*>>i 




M 


[ii 




v.-r*' 


'*^y 


/.'•Vu \ 


lIsI 




- * »'.. 


-i'U *t‘ 




.11 


v« > , » •» 


.E::»BPry ■ 

f ^ ** ,x. V. r •' ' 




- IV> 


A* 




'k 




* fc 




.1 < I 




\> 


“''V» r 




\ 




42jJ:; 


v*- 




VM.'y 


:1ft: 


> 


• tj 


I f"'» ' 

.'•■. ■ ^•.■■\ 'V 


♦t: 


i 


t: 


V 




fs I. 




‘.«' 




;f 


V 


li’vt. 




A? 


s^*1 


* _ I 


»HI 


•>;), 










SWi 






4 AI 


l'> 2.*rl 


LkJr 


f*». 






M 






.' * 4 , <1 


4 :' I 


iyCi 


<V{ 


j‘. 


‘hi 


m 

kSv 


C<’^ 


i tA 


m 




X • 




V; 








'iM 


' -‘\ 




;ifi 




PJ. •! 








?« 


u 


1^ 


\ < 






riJ: 




ii’- 


LWf 


v*« 




.V 


.» . I 






■J' 


P;\ ■ ' 

'■ ■y'M-.:- 


' < • 4 . I 


^ !.< 


k*'-' 4 • • 

'. . ' e r*. 


*?-V 


li 




■ W 4*1 


r.'-'t 










ny V 

.I ' 


?i 4 » 


M 


• . *' •, ^ *,.(»,» ^ 


i » ^ 




.( 


u 


‘ri'N’, 








/. 


•*» 


V I 




V ' 


•E’ 


V / 




« I' 


■••. ■< A 




r ' 

if 


,, 4 ^ t 


'ttl. 


■rr 


4 » ¥ 


,1, ;? 




V jrt 


'i:i 








I { 




'^Mp' 


Tl 


l'*i 


.. ► ■ .1 




iVV 


-1 /.’ 


./<S. 


rU'. •' , .-i 


\ I 


y>.h. 






's>'^ 


■> 1 ' . ft 

■ 


■*K *■ .'» 




>• .♦. 


?,*. ,v 


i:-| - <■ 


V 




• f > 


■■n 


•. 


nv 


:l 




>x 


:^>j 


i 


'C: V, 








-> w 




* "X '•X ' 




i* * > 


»• ♦ 


.'v;..<' 


. < •li 








h:^ 


»,'H 


‘-y. 




'.-> 1 


^ W?: 


■ft' 


M 


■*. 


t*2 






.* '» 








fT ' 




• 4 


V* 




Iv . r 


.'^■ ^iSyb VK p'a''. ■ \ ’\f .JX^ ■ ‘ 


1\ li 


vr'iv 


.V 




I’i 




V »/’ 


p/': 


[i*i 






;xV 


.'i- 


'*‘i 

[t 


A •:.' 




\. 


A^^ 


'Afi 


f J\‘ ■/ . •*• 

k»- • . ‘ , 

s*j «I • lA' 






i!( 


{stm 


‘ ? 


A -f ' ♦ • 


i-. 


77 ?v 




rf'ii 


vt- 


' 4. 


J— 

V 


i' 


•>.<v 






, • '• '. ' • 'J'lE ■ i' 
■N. 

L../* ■.‘»'« 4 t 'i 




V. . 


^-.P k T 1 


( 4 






«* 


‘•V?'' 

Mil, 

















The Scoutmaster Spread Out a Large Map 
















BOB HANSON 
EAGLE SCOUT 


BY 


Russell Gordon Carter 

Author of *'Bob Hanson^ Tenderfoot^* *^Bob Hanson^ Scouty* 
**Bob Hanson, First Class Scout," Patriot 
Lad of Old Boston” 



lUustrated by PAUL D. SWISHER 

THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
1923 







a 


COPYRIGHT 

1923 by 

THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



Bob Hanson, Eagle Scout 



Made in the U. S. A. 

JUL12 ’23 


©Cl A711159 

''> 1 ^. /' 




INTRODUCTION 


In the first three books of this set, Bob Hanson 
and his fellow Scouts successively went through 
a summer’s camping at Glen Gray, an unex¬ 
pected winter’s vacation at the Old Indian Cabin 
on the lake, and the next summer took a long 
canoe trip from the headwaters of the Silver 
River to the ocean, where Bob, by saving the life 
of an old man, won for himself the title of Eagle 
Scout. In this, the fourth book, the boys take a 
long cruise in a small sloop along the eastern 
coast, collecting for the Cedarville Natural His¬ 
tory Museum. 

Bob saves the life of his chum, Fred, and pre¬ 
vents the theft of the sloop, which saves the Scout¬ 
master and the rest of the troop from being 
marooned on an island. The Scouts bring home 
a wonderful collection to the museum, and Bob, 
much to his surprise, is awarded the highest honor 
that can come to a Scout, the Gold Medal of 
Honor. 


3 



CONTENTS 


I. 

An TJegent Xeed foe Money 


9 

11. 

Aboaed the Glen Geay 



. 16 

III. 

The Fiest Day Exploeing 



. 25 

IV. 

In the Mouth of Eooky Eivee 


. 33 

V. 

Ealph’s Flowee Peess . 



. 41 

VI. 

The Lean-to Tent . 

• 


. 48 

VII. 

The Camp in the Valley 

♦ 


. 57 

VIII. 

On the Isle of Eocks . 

• 


. 72 

IX. 

The Stoem 



. 83 

X. 

Eed, Yellow and Blue Clay 


. 92 

XI. 

The Egg^s Flying Chipmunk 


. 104 

XII. 

The Beidge at Mingo Seeing 


. 116 

XIII. 

In the Old Cisteen 

. 


. 127 

XIV. 

The Celebeation at Sandy Point 

. 140 

XV. 

The White Launch 

• 

• 

. 154 

XVI. 

Cast Ashoee . 

• 

• 

. 165 

XVII. 

A Ventuee in the Fog . 

• 

• 

. 175 

xvni. 

Bob Leaves His Chum . 

• 

• 

. 187 

XIX. 

With the Teoop Again 

• 

« 

. 198 

XX. 

The Sooutmastee^s Visit 

• 

• 

. 206 


6 







♦ 



t I 


^ • 'M 



A 




Illustrations 


The Scoutmaster Spread Out a Large 
Map 

He Threw His Weight on It 
They Made Out the Mast of the Sloop 


PAGE 

Frontispiece 
. r.. 137 

. 179 


Bob Hanson, Eagle Scout 


/ 


Bob Hanson, Eagle Scout 


CHAPTER I 

AN URGENT NEED FOR MONEY 

“ What do you think of the idea, Bob? ” asked 
Fred Ashleigh. 

“What does Bob think!” exclaimed Arthur 
Eggleston, cocking his long, closely-clipped head 
on one side in mock scorn. “ Why, Fred, way 
back at the end of the canoe trip last summer 
Bob told me he’d like nothing better than for the 
Troop to charter a sloop and go off on a long 
cruise. What does Bob think 1 Why, he’s crazy 
about it, aren’t you. Bob, you old Eagle Scout? ” 

Bob Hanson looked at his two companions and 
smiled. “ You’re right, Eggie,” he said, “ but 
I’ll feel better when we’ve raised the three hun¬ 
dred dollars we need. I was thinking of that 
when Fred spoke.” 

“ Well,” said Fred, “ let’s sit down here beside 
the canal and talk it over.” 

9 


10 


BOB HANSON 


The three friends, all of whom were members 
of Cedarville Troop No. 1, Boy Scouts, seated 
themselves in the shade of a big willow tree. At 
the moment the problem that faced them seemed 
grave and difficult; but each knew that if they 
solved it, the Troop would be able to spend the 
coming summer in a way that few troops are ever 
privileged to do. 

Less than a week ago Mr. McGregor, the 
Scoutmaster, had received a long letter from the 
board of directors of the Cedarville Natural 
History Museum. Scarcely a boy had moved as 
he read it aloud at the end of the weekly meeting. 
“ In the fall,” the letter began, ‘‘ the Museum 
expects to open the large southwest room on the 
second floor as a Boy Scout department. In it 
we plan to have, not only samples of Scout handi¬ 
craft, but specimens of natural history that 
Scouts have collected. Therefore, in order to 
make a good start, we are willing to put at the 
disposal of your Troop a small sloop with which 
to cruise along our eastern coast and spend the 
summer collecting for us. Certain of our citi¬ 
zens, who for the present at least do not wish to 
have their names disclosed, have volunteered to 
finance the trip provided your Troop will agree 


11 


EAGLE SCOUT 

to do its part and earn the sum of three hundred 
dollars between now and the end of June. We 
hope you will think favorably of the proposal.” 

The next day at a special meeting the Troop 
had voted to accept the offer; but after Ralph 
Maxon, the scribe, had sent the letter of accept¬ 
ance not a few of the boys began to have mis¬ 
givings as to their ability to earn so much money 
within such a short time—it was less than a 
month to the end of June. 

Though Bob did not doubt that they should 
finally win out, nevertheless he did not under¬ 
estimate the task. Now he looked steadily at 
Fred. ‘‘ How much have we earned this week? ” 
he asked. 

“About fifteen dollars,” the Egg replied. 

“ Well, then,” said Bob, “ we’ve got to hustle 
—that’s the word—hustle! I have two lawns to 
mow to-morrow, but I’m not going to wait 1 ” 
He jumped to his feet and started off toward the 
town, and Fred and the Egg strode after him. 

During the days that followed, the Scouts saw 
little of one another except for brief moments at 
school and for perhaps an hour at the weekly 
meetings on Friday. Everyone was busy earn¬ 
ing money. Mowing lawns, caring for gardens, 


12 


BOB HANSON 


running errands, distributing handbills, washing 
windows, cleaning cellars—those are only a few 
of the things they did outside of school hours. 

Late one afternoon as Bob was hurrying down 
the street he almost bumped into the Egg, who 
was hurrying in the opposite direction. “ Hello, 
Bob,” he said. “ What’s the rush? ” 

“ I’m substitute ticket-taker at the Palace for 
to-night,” Bob replied, laughing. 

“ That’s nothing,” said the Egg; ‘‘ I’m on my 
way to wash Mr. Johnson’s big Newfoundland 
dog. I’m going to get seventy-five cents for it.” 

“ Hope the dog’s good-natured about it.” 

“ He’d better be,” said the Egg. “ If he isn’t. 
I’ll rub soapsuds in his eyes. Well, so long.” 
And he hurried up the street. 

A little farther along Bob met Mr. McGregor 
and Reddy McTurk. “ Greetings, Bob,” said 
the Scoutmaster. “ You seem to be in a hurry.” 

“ Yes, sir; I have a job for this evening.” 

“ Well, well,” said the Scoutmaster, “ you boys 
certainly have the right spirit. Reddy here tells 
me he has just earned two dollars for painting 
screens.” 

“ Good for you, Reddy,” said Bob. “ We’ll 
win out; I know we shall.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


13 


“ That’s what I told them at the museum,” 
said the Scoutmaster. “ You know, raising this 
money is a kind of test for us to show what we 
can do if we have to.” 

“ Well, well show ’em! ” Reddy declared, and 
determination gleamed in his bright blue eyes. 

A few days before the end of June, Reddy’s 
prophecy was more than fulfilled. The Troop 
had gathered at their headquarters in the old fire¬ 
house on Main Street, and the Scoutmaster was 
standing up, looking at a long piece of paper that 
he held in his hand. “ I am glad to be able to 
announce,” he said, “ that during the past three 
weeks our Troop has raised the sum of three 
hundred and-” 

Hurrah! ” shouted the Egg and then flushed 
a deep red for giving vent to his feelings. 

Mr. McGregor smiled. ‘‘ Three hundred and 
seventeen dollars and thirty-one cents! ” 

There was a moment of silence, and then the 
walls and ceiling rang with a loud prolonged 
cheer in which the Scoutmaster joined. ‘‘ Hurrah 
for the trip! ” cried Tommy Fielder. ‘‘All sum¬ 
mer on the ocean wave! ” 

“ What a relief! ” said Ted Patrick. “ I was 
afraid we’d be unable to raise the money.” 



14 


BOB HANSON 


‘‘ Same here,” added Jimmy Lodge and Ar¬ 
thur Riggs. 

When the chatter of eager voices had some¬ 
what quieted down, the boys began to make their 
plans. They were all old hands at camping and 
cruising; a day or two at the most would be long 
enough for each to gather his equipment together 
and put it in shape. So they finally decided on 
the following Monday as the day for the start. 

That evening the Scoutmaster and the three 
patrol leaders—Bob and Fred and Reddy—paid 
a visit to the museum and met several members 
of the Board. There they received a set of 
written instructions telling, among other things, 
how to pack and ship certain kinds of plants and 
minerals. 

The sloop, it seemed, had been brought up 
from Delaware Bay and now lay snug and quiet 
in Placid Harbor, near Covington. Everybody 
was anxious to see her, and many were the guesses 
the boys made as to her size, her speed, her color 
and even her name. 

“ I suppose,” said Bob, “ we’ll find that she 
has some such name as the Mary S, or the Lucy 
B., but I propose that we call her the Glen Gray/^ 

“ Good,” said Mr. McGregor. “ That will 


EAGLE SCOUT 15 

serve to remind us of all the fine times we’ve had 
camping at old Glen Gray.” 

The rest of the Troop thought as the Scout¬ 
master did, and at once began to refer familiarly 
to the boat they had never seen as the “ good 
ship Glen Gray/" 

The hoys spent most of Saturday and Sunday 
talking over their plans; and when each had gone 
to bed Sunday night it was to think and dream of 
a delightful summer spent among the bays and 
inlets of the North Atlantic coast. 


CHAPTER II 


ABOARD THE GLEN GRAY 

“ Covington ! A-1-1—A-b-o-a-r-d! ” 

The conductor, standing on the long platform 
at Cedarville, waited an instant for Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor to mount the steps of the last coach; then 
he swung his arm, and the train started with a 
jolt. 

“ On our way at last,” said Tommy Fielder as 
the Scoutmaster entered the car. “ Gee, but I’m 
sleepy. What time is it, somebody? ” 

“ Ten minutes past five,” replied the Egg. 
“And I guess the whole town is still asleep.” 

The Scoutmaster glanced about him. The 
Troop occupied the rear half of the last car, and 
a low buzz of conversation sounded above the 
rattle of loose windows, the creak of tight springs 
and the clackety-clack of wheels on glistening 
rails. Each boy, dressed in the full Scout uni¬ 
form, had dropped into the most comfortable 
posture he could manage on the red plush seats. 
Overhead the iron racks were crowded with 
haversacks, blankets, fishing tackle, cameras, 
16 


EAGLE SCOUT 


17s 


raincoats, oilskins and bundles of various sizes 
and shapes. Under the seats were bundles of a 
bulkier nature, and in the baggage car ahead were 
still others,—all the property of the Troop. 

The Scoutmaster, who also was dressed in the 
regulation Scout uniform, sat down on the arm of 
the seat that Bob and Fred occupied. “ Tired? ” 
he asked. 

“A little,” replied Bob, smiling. “ What time 
do we reach Covington? ” 

“ Shortly before noon, I think.” 

“ Shall we be able to get aboard the Glen Gray 
at once? ” asked Fred. 

“ I shouldn’t be surprised if we could,” replied 
the Scoutmaster. “ I’ve telegraphed ahead, and 
the man who has charge of her expects us. From 
what I have heard of her she’s a real boat with 
a stout little gasoline engine, a good spread of 
sail and a roomy cabin.” 

Why the dickens is everyone so quiet? ” 
asked Fred. “ Hey, you fellows, wake up! Do 
you know where you’re going? ” 

‘‘ Oh, we’re going to sail the sea,” the Egg 
replied in a singsong voice, “ the deep blue—oh, 
gosh, I’m too sleepy to sing.” And he curled up 
with his head on the edge of the seat. 


18 


BOB HANSON 


But a few hours later everyone was wide 
awake. The sun had climbed high in the blue 
sky, and the air that rushed in at the windows 
seemed laden with salt and the fragrance of pine 
trees. Then all of a sudden the lumbering, 
swaying train emerged from a deep cut, and 
there at the right lay the ocean, a deeper blue 
than the sky and flecked with little patches of 
white. As Bob looked he felt the blood leap in 
his pulses. Far out a four-masted schooner with 
all sails set was running before the wind; in his 
mind he pictured the Glen Gray careening along 
in a storm. He could almost hear the whistle of 
the gale in the rigging and feel the cold spray 
as it dashed up over the sides. 

“ Covington’s the next stop,” Ralph an¬ 
nounced, looking at a time-table. ‘‘We’ll be 
there in ten minutes.” 

The next moment everyone was busy getting 
his baggage in shape. “ Look out with that flag¬ 
pole,” Tommy cautioned as the Egg narrowly 
missed poking the end of the Troop flagstaff into 
his chum’s face. 

“ Oh, excuse me. Tommy,” exclaimed the Egg, 
swinging hastily round and thrusting the other 
send into Alec Thompson’s ribs. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


19 


“ Help me get this pack on, Jimmy,” said Ted. 

“ Sure, if you’ll give me a hand with this duffle 
bag.” 

The train was slowing down now, and the 
houses of the little seaside village of Covington 
were in sight. Then half a minute later it came 
to a full stop beside the old worn platform, where 
a little group of villagers were waiting for it. 

“ Beavers out first! ” shouted the Scoutmaster. 
“ Red Foxes second, and Wildcats last.” 

“ This way, Beavers,” said Bob, and the other 
members of his patrol followed him to the rear of 
the car. 

“ Watch your step there,” cautioned the con¬ 
ductor. “ Never saw so much baggage in my 
life! Look out! ” he added as the Egg’s flagpole 
slipped sidewise across the door and brought him 
to an abrupt stop. ‘‘ There you are.” 

The Troop lined up in double file on the plat¬ 
form, and while they were waiting, a middle-aged 
man in bright yellow oilskins came up the hill and 
strode over to the Scoutmaster. “ Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor? ” he said inquiringly. 

The Scoutmaster nodded and extended his 
hand. 

“ Latham is my name,” said the man. “ Every- 


20 


BOB HANSON 


thing is trim and shipshape. The Martha G. 
lies at the lower wharf, waiting. Do you want 
to go aboard right away? ” 

“ I think we'd better," the Scoutmaster said 
with a smile. “ If we wait much longer, I'm 
afraid these boys will all die of curiosity—^myself 
included!" 

Mr. Latham’s quiet blue eyes twinkled, and 
without further comment he led the way through 
the gray little village down to a long breakwater 
where a score or more boats lay at anchor. Out 
to the end of the wharf the Troop followed him, 
and when he finally stopped at the side of the 
last boat several of the boys could not keep from 
shouting. 

Mr. Latham turned to the Scoutmaster. 
“ There she is," he said. 

The Martha G,, which already had changed 
her name to the Glen Gray, was a broad staunch 
craft with a short heavy-looking mast and a short 
bowsprit. The color of her hull was dull green; 
her roomy cabin, which seemed to squat comfort¬ 
ably amidships, was the color of weathered oak; 
her mainsail, furled on the long boom, shone 
under the noonday sun like the sand on the 
beach. The air about her seemed saturated with 


EAGLE SCOUT 21 

many odors, the most pungent of which were tar, 
creosote and fish. 

One after another the Scouts stepped aboard 
with all their hand luggage. Bob’s first impres¬ 
sion was that the sloop was much too small to 
hold them all; but five minutes later he was 
astonished at the amount of extra space that was 
left after Mr. Latham had showed them where to 
stow their equipment. In the cabin there were 
bunks for twelve, and at a pinch all three patrols 
could crowd inside and keep dry. 

“ You’ll be more comfortable,” Mr. Latham 
said to the Scoutmaster, “ if you’ll spread a tar¬ 
paulin here in the cockpit in front of the engine. 
And what extra cargo you have you can stow 
below deck for’ard of the cabin.” 

“ Say, Bob, this is slick,” said Fred. 

“ You bet it is,” said the Egg, grasping the 
spokes of the wheel and pretending to steer. 
“ Look out there ahead! Get over on your own 
side of the ocean, or I’ll scrape off your mud¬ 
guards. Get over; I say-” 

He stopped in the middle of his sentence as 
Tommy grasped him by the collar. “ I arrest 
you in the name of the law, Eggie,’^ he said, ‘‘ for 
driving without a license.” 



22 


BOB HANSON 


“ Here comes the rest of our baggage,” said 
the Scoutmaster as a wagon piled high with 
bundles and boxes came bumping and squeaking 
down the wharf. “ Everybody look lively now 
and lend a hand.” 

It took perhaps half an hour to unload the 
wagon and stow things in their proper places; 
and at the end of it Mr. Latham said that the 
sloop was fit to leave port. Then the Egg 
suddenly remembered that he had not eaten any¬ 
thing since half-past four; so he and Ralph and 
Ted fished out some canned beans and some sea 
biscuit. 

The meal was cold and lacked variety, but it 
tasted delicious nevertheless, especially since they 
ate it aboard the Glen Gray —their first meal of 
the trip. Mr. Latham joined them and smacked 
his lips over the simple food. 

At two o’clock the old sailor went ashore, Mr. 
McGregor started the engine, the hawsers were 
cast loose, and the Glen Gray started slowly to¬ 
ward the lighthouse on the bluff that overlooked 
the little harbor. 

At first there was some confusion on board the 
sloop, but the Scoutmaster and Bob and Fred, all 
of whom had done considerable sailing, helped 


EAGLE SCOUT 


23 


the others with words of explanation and with 
their actions. The Scoutmaster swung the wheel 
with skilled hands, and as Bob and Fred coiled 
and tightened ropes they kept themselves con¬ 
stantly alert and ready to execute any commands 
that their skipper might give. 

“ There’s a pretty strong wind out there,” said 
Fred. “ See the white caps? ” 

“ Well,” replied Bob, “ we’ll have a chance to 
see what the old Glen Gray can do under sail. 
O Ralph,” he added, “ will you and Reddy and 
Tommy stand by to give us a hand with these 
ropes? ” 

The little village was well astern now; a few 
hundred yards off the port bow the lighthouse 
stood out like a great white monument against 
the blue sky. Now they could feel a gentle wind 
in their faces. 

“ Ready, Bob,” said the Scoutmaster quietly. 

Aye, aye, sir,” replied Bob. 

“ Now—oboist away! ” 

“ Heave! ” cried Bob and Fred together, and 
the boys hauled on the ropes. 

Up, up went the gaff to the tune of squeaking 
pulleys, up went the sail and billowed outward as 
the wind struck it and filled it. As the sloop 


24 


BOB HANSON 


careened to port, the Scoutmaster swung the 
wheel, and the Glen Gray seemed fairly to leap 
on an easterly course, with the wind following her 
almost astern. 

Bob and Fred had secured the ropes and were 
holding on to the cabin to keep from sliding on 
the slanting deck. Close to the bowsprit the 
Egg and Tommy were hanging on for dear life. 
The rest of the Troop were gathered in the cock¬ 
pit where with bright eyes they were watching the 
dark water rushing madly past the low rail. 

“ Gallopin’ onions! ” cried Reddy, at last 
catching his breath. “ This is what I call sail¬ 
ing!” 


CHAPTER III 


THE FIRST DAY EXPLORING 

With the wind almost dead astern the Glen 
Gray continued to scurry along over the spar¬ 
kling water. On the left lay a long line of white 
glistening beach, and above it the gentle curve of 
green hills. On the right as far as they could see 
there were only water and sky, which seemed to 
meet in an almost imperceptible horizon. 

“ Anybody feel seasick? ’’ shouted Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor, who had turned the wheel over to Bob. 

‘‘ I felt a little dizzy,” replied the Egg, “ but 
I’m all right now.” 

Apparently the others were feeling in tip-top 
shape, for they grinned and waved their hands by 
way of replying. 

“ Better run a little closer to shore. Bob,” the 
Scoutmaster advised. “ There’s no need of our 
sleeping on board to-night if we can find a good 
camp site.” 

Bob put his helm over slightly, and the Glen 
Gray started on a long tack toward the white 
26 


26 


BOB HANSON 


beach. Soon they could see the breakers and 
then the scrub pine that fringed the shore. Half 
an hour later they rounded a slate-colored bluff 
and found themselves in a small natural harbor. 
“ This will do first rate/’ said the Scoutmaster. 

The sail flapped and fluttered and then came 
down with a succession of little jerks. Fred and 
Reddy and Alec Thompson made everything 
snug, and then the Scoutmaster started the 
engine. Slowly the little sloop nosed ahead, and 
Tommy stood ready in the bow with a long boat¬ 
hook carefully poised. The harbor was deep, 
and there was virtually no surf. Skilfully Bob 
brought the stout little craft alongside a broad 
ledge of gray rock, and Tommy fended her off 
nicely. 

“ Drop the anchors! ” shouted Bob, and Ralph 
and ‘‘ Nellie ” Paynter, who had been waiting for 
the word, let them go with a splash. 

With as little delay as possible the boys began 
to prepare a large hot supper on the beach. 
There was plently of driftwood at hand, and they 
soon had a cheerful fire. In order to conserve 
the water that the sloop carried in two large 
butts, they searched the hinterland and were 
rewarded by finding a tiny stream, from which 


EAGLE SCOUT 


27 


they filled their buckets. Hot cocoa, hot boiled 
rice and raisins, stewed apricots and ship’s 
biscuit—that was the menu which Reddy an¬ 
nounced; and at last when supper was cooked 
everyone had a ferocious appetite. 

“ This is certainly a pretty spot,” said Fred. 

How long are we going to stay here? ” 

“ I think we’d better spend all of to-morrow 
here,” the Scoutmaster replied. “ We need to 
organize ourselves for the work ahead of us. 
I’ll say a few words this evening round the camp¬ 
fire.” 

The sun had set, and the little harbor was rich 
with pink and gold and violet before the last 
mess-kit had been washed. Then not long after 
the first star had gleamed in the east the boys 
built up the fire and gathered round it on the 
clean soft sand. “ First of all,” said the Scout¬ 
master, “ we want to carry home with us speci¬ 
mens of as many different kinds of wood as we 
can find.” 

‘‘ Big pieces? ” inquired Jimmy Lodge. 

“No; pieces perhaps a foot long. And does 
anyone know how they should be cut? ” 

“ I do,” replied Bob. “ Half the stick should 
have the bark on it, and the other half should be 


28 


BOB HANSON 


cut square. One end should be cut at right 
angles, and the other slanting. In that way you 
can tell just how the grain runs.” 

‘‘ Oh, yes,” said Fred. “ And we can do the 
trimming during our spare moments on board 
ship.” 

“ Another thing,” the Scoutmaster continued, 
“ no museum would be complete without a large 
collection of rocks and minerals all properly 
labeled. Most of you know the more common 
rocks by sight; and Ralph and Bob have both 
studied geology at school.” 

“Yes, and outside of school too!” the Egg 
exclaimed. “ Those two fellows have an awful 
thirst for knowledge.” 

“ For the rest of the things,” said the Scout¬ 
master, “ I’m going to depend largely on each 
boy’s imagination. You have all been to 
museums; you know the kind of things that are 
in the cases and on the walls. Of course, we’ll 
have to draw the line at collecting birds and 
animals, but,” he added significantly, “ we have 
several cameras with us.” 

That night the Red Foxes and the Wildcats 
carried their blankets from the Glen Gray and 
slept round the fire on the beach. The sand was 


EAGLE SCOUT 


29 


warm and soft; the night was clear, and the dark 
sky was filled with thousands of bright stars. 
The two patrols slept well. Bob and his Beavers 
slept on board the sloop and acted, as the Egg 
said, as a “ kind of dog watch.” 

The next morning the boys divided themselves 
into “ gangs ” and began their first day of ex¬ 
ploring. Mr. McGregor and one hoy from each 
patrol remained behind to take care of the sloop. 
“ We can’t afford to leave the boat alone even for 
a short time,” said the Scoutmaster; “ she’s too 
good a craft to lose.” 

Bob led his gang, which consisted mostly of 
members from his patrol, back among the pines 
and soon found that the country was almost a 
desert; the pine growth ended less than half a 
mile from the shore, and beyond it there seemed 
to be little except sand-dunes and rank growth of 
a monotonous and unattractive character. Yet, 
bleak and desert-like though the country was, the 
Beavers had an interesting day of it. Ralph 
took several photographs of the dunes to show 
how the wind had built them up and shaped 
them. Bob found a good specimen of rock with 
quartz in it and shortly afterward stumbled on a 
queer-shaped piece of flint. 


30 


BOB HANSON 


“ What have you got. Bob? ” asked Ralph. 

“ It looks like—^why, yes, I believe it is—^an 
arrow-head! ” Bob exclaimed. 

“ Sure enough,’’ said Ralph. “ That’s a peach 
of a find. Bob. I wonder if there are any 
more? ” 

But it seemed to be the only one in the vicinity, 
and Bob noted the place in which he had found 
it and then put it into his haversack. 

The Egg found a stone that contained mica, 
or isinglass, and then picked up another, which 
seemed to be composed of pebbles, sandstone and 
two or three other kinds of stone. “ Say, what 
the dickens is this, Bob? ” he asked. 

“ That’s puddin’ stone, Eggie. Keep it; it’s a 
good-looking specimen.” 

“ It does look like pudding,” said the Egg, 
grinning. 

“ Don’t break your teeth on it,” cautioned 
Ted. 

It was mid-afternoon when the Beavers re¬ 
turned, laden like pack mules. The two other 
patrols had arrived half an hour ago and now 
were looking at the specimens they had brought 
with them; Mr. McGregor and Reddy had 
spread them out on a large tarpaulin. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


31 


All right, you Beavers,” said the Scout¬ 
master, “ put your souvenirs here with the 
others.” 

The Troop had made a good start. There 
were perhaps a dozen different kinds of wood 
including several species of pine and scrub oak. 
The Wildcats, who had confined themselves to 
the shore, had returned with many varieties of 
shells, pebbles and seaweed and a few starfish. 
The Red Foxes had brought back many of the 
things that Bob’s patrol had found, but the boys 
chose the smallest and best specimens and threw 
the duplicates away. The most interesting find 
of all was Bob’s arrow-head. 

“ I suppose it has lain just where you found it. 
Bob, for years and years—maybe for centuries,” 
said the Scoutmaster. “ This whole country 
used to be the hunting ground of Narragansets, 
Iroquois and many other tribes. I hope we can 
find other relics like it.” 

“ And this puddin’ stone,” said the Egg; 
“ I wish we could find one that wasn’t baked so 
hard. It would be delicious with some of that 
sea water for sauce.” And the Egg looked at 
the conglomerate mass as if it would not take 
much to make him eat it—^with sauce or without. 


32 


BOB HANSON 


The Troop spent the rest of the afternoon 
labeling the specimens and storing them aboard 
the sloop. Ralph went inside the cabin and 
opening his log book began to write up the events 
that had occurred since they left Cedarville. 


CHAPTER IV 


IN THE MOUTH OF ROCKY RIVER 

Early the next morning the Glen Gray 
slipped out of the little harbor. The water was 
all pink and green and blue under the dawn- 
flushed sky. The wind struck the sail, and the 
sloop rounded the point gracefully. 

“ Last summer,” said Fred, “ I thought canoe¬ 
ing was the finest sport on earth, but now I think 
sailing has it beaten.” 

“ It’s certainly just as good,” said Bob. 

There were plenty of things to do aboard the 
sloop. Each boy served his trick at the wheel; 
and under the instruction of Bob and Fred and 
the Scoutmaster each began to learn the names of 
the various parts of the little boat and the pur¬ 
poses that they served. 

‘‘ How far do we go to-day? ” asked Fred. 

“ Come down into the cabin where the wind 
won’t bother us,” replied Mr. McGregor, “ and 
we’ll look over our maps. I suppose I really 
ought to call it the chart room.” 

33 


34 


BOB HANSON 


In the cabin the Scoutmaster spread out a 
large map on the little table, and Bob and Fred 
bent over it. “ We have the whole North 
Atlantic coast before us,” said Mr. McGregor, 
“ and two months in which to explore it. Now 
here on the map you see this river-” 

“ Rocky River,” said Fred, twisting his head 
on one side to read the fine print on the map. 
“ We’re not far from it now, are we? ” 

“ No; we ought to reach it before sundown.” 

For half an hour the two boys continued to 
study the map, and then Reddy and Tommy 
came in to tell Fred that it was his turn at the 
wheel. 

Shortly after the Troop had eaten a cold lunch 
on board the sloop the sun disappeared in a heavy 
bank of clouds and remained there. By mid¬ 
afternoon the sea was flecked with white, and the 
wind increased and sang and hummed in the rig¬ 
ging. 

“ Looks like a storm,” said Reddy. “ Hope 
we reach Rocky River before it strikes us.” 

The Scoutmaster took the wheel and called for 
Bob and Fred and Reddy to stand by in case 
they were needed. But the Glen Gray was mak¬ 
ing good headway; the mouth of Rocky River 



EAGLE SCOUT 


35 


was already in sight before the storm broke. 
And then after the first heavy puff the wind 
quickly settled to a steady blow that sent the 
sloop skimming along like a great white bird. 

“ Ah,” said the Scoutmaster as they entered 
the placid water of the river mouth, “ this is 
fine! The storm isn’t over, and there’s likely 
to be a strong gale before nightfall; but we’re 
safe enough here.” 

Rocky River proved indeed to be rocky. The 
Glen Gray pushed against the sluggish current 
for two or three hundred yards, and then a black 
reef blocked the way. Storm-swept oaks and 
pines and birches grew rank along both shores 
and broke the force of the wind. The river- 
mouth made a good harbor. 

“ Say, we’re in luck! ” exclaimed Harold Hall. 
“ Look out there! ” 

Everyone looked in the direction in which 
Harold was pointing. The sea was as black as 
ink; the sky had grown so dark that they could 
not see the white tops of the waves. 

“ Storm’s right from the southeast,” said Bob. 
“ Just listen to that wind! ” 

The thick mass of trees on the southern bank 
of the river had become suddenly active. The 


36 


BOB HANSON 


gale lashed the tree tops and sent the salt spray- 
flying. Night was coming on with alarming ra¬ 
pidity, and the boys could hear the rain beating 
among the thick foliage inland. 

“ I like this! ” Bob whispered to Fred. 

“ So do I,” replied his chum; “ but if the wind 
shifts to the east, we’re in for trouble, I tell you.” 

Ted and the Egg lit the port and the starboard 
lanterns, and “ Dimples ” Davis lit the big oil 
lamp in the cabin. As soon as everyone had had a 
bite to eat, the Scoutmaster divided the whole 
Troop into watches. “ I think we’re safe 
enough,” he said; “ our anchors are heavy, and 
the Glen Gray is a stout little craft; but we’d 
better not take any unnecessary risks.” 

Bob’s watch came early in the evening, and 
with Ralph and the Egg beside him he crouched 
in the cockpit with eyes open wide and ears alert. 
All three boys wore oilskins and sou’westers, and 
all three, impressed with the fury of the storm 
that seemed to be raging all around them, talked 
in whispers. 

At nine o’clock Mr. McGregor and Fred and 
Tommy relieved them, and they were glad to 
crowd into the cabin with the others. 

Bob did not sleep much that night. The roll- 


EAGLE SCOUT 


87 


ing of the sloop was a little too uneven to be rest¬ 
ful; the air was cold, and the spray frequently 
beat its way under the edges of the tarpaulin that 
covered the door; the crashing of branches and 
the heavy pounding of the surf kept his mind 
alert. He wondered what he should do if the 
Glen Gray were ever caught at sea in such a 
storm. 

In the morning the surf was pounding away 
on the long line of beach on both sides of the 
river mouth, and the wind was still high, and the 
sky dark and lowering. In such weather it 
would have been extremely unwise to venture 
out, though Bob and Fred both declared that 
they could handle the little sloop if they did have 
to brave the storm. 

Clad in oilskins, some of the boys went ashore 
and built a large lean-to of pine branches. 
Seated in the shelter of it, with a great fire burn¬ 
ing just outside, they spent most of the morning 
telling stories and carving the various kinds of 
wood they had gathered, so as to fit them for the 
glass-covered cases of the museum. 

“You need a sharp blade for this kind of 
work,” said Harold, whetting his Scout knife on 
a smooth stone. 


38 


BOB HANSON 


“ Yes, and a sharp eye too,” said Ralph, hold¬ 
ing up a piece of wood he was working on. 
“ This bit of red cedar makes a pretty specimen. 
It hasn’t a striking grain like your piece of oak, 
Harold, but the smooth white wood with the red 
centre certainly is attractive.” 

At that moment Arthur Riggs, who was break¬ 
ing wood for the fire, gave a quick exclamation. 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked Bob. 

Arthur turned and held up his right arm, which 
showed a long deep scratch on the under side of 
it. “I did it when that big branch there snapped. 
Gosh, how it smarts! ” 

“ Gee, that’s a nasty cut,” said Bob; “don’t 
touch it.” And he ran quickly toward the Glen 
Gray, 

“What’s all the hurry. Bob?” asked the 
Scoutmaster as Bob came aboard. 

“ Arthur scratched his arm pretty badly.” In 
a twinkling Bob opened one of the lockers that 
held the Troop first-aid supplies and chose a 
sterilized dressing. 

He and the Scoutmaster hurried ashore, where 
Arthur was waiting beside the fire. Bob lost no 
time in applying the dressing, but he was careful 
not to touch the front of it with his fingers. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


39 


Once the dressing was in place, he made it firm 
with several turns of clean bandage and then told 
Arthur to sit down. “ How does it feel? ” he 
asked. “ Is it too tight? ” 

“No; it feels all right, except that it smarts 
a little.” 

“ It wasn’t such a terribly bad cut,” said Bob, 
turning to Mr. McGregor, “ but I thought it best 
not to take any risks. We’re miles and miles 
away from any doctor.” 

“ You showed good judgment. Bob,” said the 
Scoutmaster. “ Sometimes a slight scratch is 
a bad thing; you’re likely to get some germ or 
other into it, and then before you know it blood- 
poisoning sets in. You didn’t wash the wound, 
did you? ” 

“ No, sir,” replied Bob. “ Ordinary water is 
likely to contain germs.” 

“ I just held my arm up like this,” said 
Arthur, “ and didn’t touch it at all.” 

“ Good,” said Mr. McGregor. “ You’ll be all 
right.” 

“ Gee, Arthur,” said the Egg, “ you’re a hero! 
Now, if it had been me I’d certainly have raised 
a howl. Why, one time when I was in grammar 
school I was going to shoot a rubber band across 


40 


BOB HANSON 


the room, and the thing slipped and caught me 
right on the mouth. I tell you I let out a 
howl!” 

“ I suppose your lips were so sore you couldn’t 
eat,” suggested Tommy. 

“ You’re wrong. Tommy,” the Egg replied. 
“ My lips were all right. But,” he added with a 
grin, “ I did go without supper that night, be¬ 
cause the teacher sent a note home, and my dad 
packed me right off to bed.” 

The Egg sure was an awful roughneck be¬ 
fore he joined the Scouts,” said Reddy. We 
rescued him just in time.” 

All afternoon the sky was heavy, and the wind 
continued to drive the spray among the trees. 
The air was sharp and penetrating, and the night, 
when it came, seemed like a night in late October. 
The Troop shivered in their blankets aboard the 
sloop. 


CHAPTER V 


Ralph’s flower press 

‘‘ Rise and shine, you fellows! ” shouted Fred 
early the next morning. “ There’s a patch of 
blue sky out here as big as a blanket 1 ” 

“ Well, it’s about time,” said the Egg, spring¬ 
ing up from his bunk and trying to pull his shirt 
on all in the same movement. “ Say, this air 
makes a fellow hungry! ” 

The storm had passed during the night, and 
now the morning sun, still somewhere behind a 
cloud, was painting the sky overhead with long 
streaks of pink. 

‘‘ Let’s all go ashore and eat breakfast,” the 
Scoutmaster suggested. “ Bob, what are you 
Beavers going to give us? ” 

‘‘ There’s bacon,” suggested Bob;“ and I know 
the Egg is dying to make flapjacks. Besides, 
there’s oatmeal.” 

On shore the Wildcats and the Red Foxes 
scurried through the woods to find dry wood. It 
was pretty scarce, for the rain had drenched 
41 


42 


BOB HANSON 


things thoroughly, but they managed to return 
with enough to cook breakfast with. 

Everybody seemed to be full of life and good 
spirits. Tommy challenged the Egg to a wres¬ 
tling match on the sand, and in the excitement 
that followed. Bob almost burnt a panful of 
savory bacon. He pulled it from the flames just 
in time to save it, and then turned and shouted a 
word of encouragement to the Egg, who was 
having a hard time with his heavy opponent. 

Even Ralph, who was usually very quiet, 
forgot himself that morning. “ Look out, 
Eggie! ” he shouted. “ Don’t let him get that 
hold!” 

“ Now you’ve got him. Tommy! ” cried Reddy. 
“ That’s the hold! There he goes over on his 
back—there ” 

“Breakfast is ready!” shouted Bob and 
Harold. 

And at that moment the Egg got to his knees, 
straightened his legs suddenly and shot Tommy 
over his head. “Breakfast! O boy!” he ex¬ 
claimed and scrambled to his feet. 

The boys gave a loud burst of laughter. 

“ I might have known better than to wrestle 
with him before breakfast,” said Tommy. 



EAGLE SCOUT 


43 


“Well, I’ll wrestle j^ou after breakfast,” said 
the Egg, grinning. 

“ No,” Tommy replied with emphasis. “ You’ll 
be twice as heavy then as you are now.” 

By the time breakfast was ended and the mess- 
kits were clean the sun was out in full blaze, and 
the clouds were rapidly growing smaller. The 
boys at once organized two “ gangs ” and set out 
to search the woods and the fields for specimens. 
Luck seemed to be with them, for at noon when 
they returned they carried a dozen new kinds of 
wood, two wasps’ nests, a large hornet’s nest, the 
antlers of a small deer, the skeleton of a small 
bird and a large assortment of plants and flowers. 

“ Those flowers are mighty pretty,” said Mr. 
McGregor, “ but does anyone know the names of 
all of them? ” 

“ I do,” Ralph replied; “ that is, all except a 
few, and I can soon find out the names of them 
from a book I’ve got in one of the lockers.” 

“ How are we going to get them home without 
injuring them? ” 

“ That’s easy,” said Ralph. “ Yesterday I 
started to make what I call a flower press; it’s 
almost finished now. Just a moment and I’ll 
get it.” 


44 


BOB HANSON 


He went out to the sloop and soon returned 
with a bundle of old newspapers and two latticed 
frames each a foot and a half square, 

“ Good for you, Ralph! ” exclaimed the Scout¬ 
master. Then he turned and shouted, “ Scouts 
front and centre! Scout Maxon has something 
to show us.’’ 

“ It isn’t much,” said Ralph when the others 
had gathered round him. “ I made these two 
frames yesterday, and they’re nothing more than 
a few strips of wood latticed together like a bit 
of porch screening. I’m afraid they’ll warp a 
little, for the wood I used is pretty green; but it 
was the best I could get.” 

“ What the dickens are they for? ” asked Ted. 

“ Well,” Ralph continued, “ first you lay this 
one flat on the ground like that; then you tear 
these newspapers into squares.” He folded one 
of the papers, tore it carefully and placed two of 
the squares on top of the lattice. Then he chose 
several of the flowers and laid them on the paper 
and smoothed them with his fingers. “ There,” 
he said, “ that sheet is covered with daisies. Now 
with this blue pencil I’ll write a brief description 
of them and mark what they are and where and 
when we found them.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


45 


He laid several fresh sheets of paper on top 
of the daisies and then covered the top one with 
half a dozen flowers of another species. Finally 
he had ten or twelve sheets lying flat on the 
frame, and distributed among them were all the 
flowers the boys had gathered. “ Now,” he said, 
picking up the other frame and placing it on top 
of the pile, “ all I have to do is to strap the frames 
together, and the flowers inside will keep flat and 
not get torn.” 

Fishing two leather straps from his pocket, he 
adjusted them crosswise round the frames and 
tightened the buckles. 

“Why couldn’t you use flat boards?” asked 
Harold. 

“You could; but lattice is better, because it 
allows the air to get at the plants and dry them. 
Without air they might get moldy.” 

“ That’s a clever idea, Ralph,” said Bob. 

“Another thing,” said Ralph, “ sheets of news¬ 
paper are about the best material you could use, 
because there’s something in the ink that will kill 
all the little bugs on a flower. At the end of a 
week or so when every bit of moisture is out of 
the leaves I’ll mix some paste and mount the 
flowers on sheets of heavy white paper.” 


46 


BOB HANSON 


“Ralph/’ said Mr. McGregor, “you’re a 
credit to the Troop.” 

“ He certainly is,” said Fred. “ I’m going to 
start a flower press to-morrow. You bet we’ll 
surprise the folks at home with a great big col¬ 
lection! ” 

And not only Fred, but five or six other boys 
at once announced their intention of making one 
or more frames. 

Toward the end of the afternoon the whole 
Troop went in for a swim. It was the first swim 
of the summer, and they stayed in for almost an 
hour, splashing and ducking one another and 
diving from the low gunwales of the sloop. 

After supper as they were sitting in front of 
the lean-to, watching the play of colors on the 
water. Bob suggested to the Scoutmaster that it 
might be good fun to take an overnight hike into 
the woods. 

“ It would indeed,” said Mr. McGregor. “A 
few of you could go while the rest of us remained 
here with the sloop. Why not make a small tent 
just for that purpose? ” 

“A tent? ” repeated Bob. “ I hadn’t thought 
of that. Where shall we be able to get the 
stuff? ” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


47 


‘‘ There’s extra canvas aboard the sloop.” 

“ Hurrah! ” cried Bob. “ I know how to make 
a lean-to tent, and waterproof it too! ” 

“All right,” said the Scoutmaster. “ You can 
go to work on it the first thing to-morrow morn¬ 
ing.” 

“ Who’ll help? ” asked Bob. 

“ I will,” replied Fred. 

“ So will I,” said Reddy. 

And Bob at once began to make his plans. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE LEAN-TO TENT 

Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning 
when Bob and Fred and Reddy opened the locker 
that contained the extra canvas and carried it to 
the forward deck of the sloop. There they spread 
it out, and Bob fished from his pocket a piece of 
paper on which he had written a few memoranda. 

“ What kind of tent is it going to be? ” asked 
the Egg. “ A circus tent? ” 

Bob smiled. “No; it will be a small tent that 
two of us can easily carry as part of our regular 
equipment.” 

“ Here’s something that will make the work go 
a little faster,” said Mr. McGregor, and he 
handed Reddy a large pair of shears. 

“ Now,” said Bob, glancing at the piece of 
paper, “ we need one piece of canvas six feet wide 
and eight feet long.” 

Fred at once measured off the dimensions on 
the canvas, and Reddy began to cut. 

“ You’ve got a good eye, Reddy,” said 
Tommy; “ you ought to be a tailor.” 

48 


EAGLE SCOUT 


49 


“ Or a barber,” added the Egg. 

“ There it is,” said Reddy a few minutes later 
and pushed the piece of cloth aside. 

‘‘ Xow,” said Bob, “ we need two pieces for the 
sides, each triangular in shape. The dimensions 
are four by six by eight. The other piece was 
for the back.” 

“ Four by six by eight,” repeated Fred, kneel¬ 
ing down to measure. 

While Reddy was cutting. Bob marked a row 
of points a foot apart on the long sides of the rec¬ 
tangular piece and another row on one of the 
short sides. “ Those are for holes,” he said. 

“ Come on, fellows,” said Ralph, “ let’s all get 
to work and make the holes with the points of our 
knives.” 

“ They’ll have to be trimmed and sewed round 
the edges,” said Bob. ‘‘ There’s a light rope to 
go through them, and if we don’t fix the edges, 
they’re likely to tear out.” 

“ That’s nothing; I’ve made buttonholes many 
a time.” Ralph began to work the point of his 
knife through the canvas. “ Jimmy,” he said, 

go below and bring up the box with the needles 
and thread.” 

‘‘ Aye, aye, sir,” cried Jimmy. 


50 


BOB HANSON 


In a few moments half a dozen Scouts were at 
work on the big piece of canvas. By that time 
Reddy had cut the two triangular pieces. On 
the two longest sides of each Bob made marks 
with his pencil a foot apart, and the boys who 
were not already working busied themselves 
punching the holes. 

“Ouch!” exclaimed the Egg. “That’s the 
second time I stuck my finger.” 

“ Put a piece of cotton on the end of your 
needle,” suggested Tommy, “ Safety first, you 
know.” 

“ Never mind, Eggie,” said Bob, “ you’re 
working lots faster than Tommy.” 

“ That’s because he spurs himself on every 
once in a while with the point of his needle,” said 
Tommy promptly. 

At last all three pieces of canvas were finished. 

“ Quick work,” said the Scoutmaster. 
“What next. Bob?” 

“ To make it serviceable we ought to water¬ 
proof it,” replied Bob. “ But first I think we 
ought to go ashore and set it up and see if it’s all 
right.” 

“ Well, let’s do that,” said Mr. McGregor. 

The boys carried the canvas to an open place 


EAGLE SCOUT 


51 


in the woods not far from the beach, and Tommy 
and Ted cut five poles. Two of them were a 
trifie more than eight feet long; two were five 
feet, and one was seven feet. 

As Bob had suggested. Tommy and Ted had 
chosen for the five-foot poles two that had small 
crotches at the top; now they drove those poles 
into the ground exactly six feet apart. Then 
they took the two eight-foot lengths and rested 
one end of each in each crotch and pressed the 
other end into the soft earth. “ There,” said 
Bob, placing the seven-foot pole on top of the 
ends of the long poles that projected slightly be¬ 
yond the crotches, “ our framework is all ready.” 

“ It’s just the shape of a lean-to, isn’t it? ” said 
Harold. 

“ Yes,” replied Bob, but instead of using fir 
branches we’ll use canvas as a covering. O Fred, 
give me a hand now, will you, please? ” 

Bob held one of the triangular pieces of canvas 
in place, and Fred ran a length of stout cord first 
through a hole in the upper edge of it and then 
through a hole in the edge of the rectangular 
piece. In a few minutes he had lashed the two 
securely together; then he did the same with the 
second triangular piece on the other side. 


52 


BOB HANSON 


‘‘Hurrah!” shouted the Egg. “The tent’s 
all ready to sleep in.” 

“You can’t sleep yet, Eggie,” said Bob; 
“ we’ll have to cut some pegs and fasten the bot¬ 
tom edges down. That’s what the other holes are 
for.” 

The Egg at once joined Tommy and Ted, who 
were cutting pegs. A few minutes later the tent 
was pegged down firmly, and Bob announced 
that the only other thing they had to do was to 
waterproof the canvas. 

“ Well, I call it a mighty good-looking tent,” 
said the Scoutmaster. “ What are the advan¬ 
tages of such a tent. Bob? ” 

“ First of all, it’s small and light and easy to 
carry,” Bob replied. “ I guess that’s the chief 
advantage. But there’s another advantage—the 
wide opening in front will catch the heat from 
your fire. The best way to keep warm is to 
build a fire a few feet away with heavy backlogs 
that will throw the heat forward.” 

“ But suppose there’s a driving rain? ” sug¬ 
gested Alec. “ Wouldn’t it beat in at the open 
end? ” 

“ Yes, it would; then the best thing to do is to 
face the tent in the opposite direction. Of 


EAGLE SCOUT 


53 


course, you might rig up a covering for the 
front, but that would keep the heat of the fire 
out.” 

“ I think I’d prefer a sure enough lean-to made 
of fir branches,” said Reddy. 

“ Well, so would I,” said Bob; “ you can keep 
just as warm under the branches, and besides you 
have the sweet odor of them all round you. But 
of course you might be out where there were no 
fir trees, perhaps where there were no trees of any 
kind; then you’d be glad to have the tent.” 

“ That’s so,” said the Scoutmaster. ‘‘ More¬ 
over, I’ve always thought that it is rather too bad 
to trim a tree and build a lean-to when you expect 
to stay in one place only overnight.” 

“ The next thing to do is waterproof our can¬ 
vas,” said Bob. “ I wonder whether there’s any 
alum or sugar of lead aboard the sloop? ” 

“ I doubt it,” replied Mr. McGregor; but we 
can go and see.” 

Though they searched all the lockers on board 
they found neither of the two chemicals, which 
Bob said would make an excellent solution for 
waterproofing canvas. For a few minutes Bob 
looked a bit crestfallen; but when the Egg found 
several cakes of paraffin and Harold happened 


54 


BOB HANSON 


on a can of turpentine his face brightened. 
“ Those will do! ’’ he exclaimed. 

Harold poured some of the turpentine into a 
large galvanized pail, and Bob added paraffin to 
the liquid by shaving off thin slices from one of 
the cakes. The boys carried the mixture ashore, 
and, after heating water in a large shallow pan, set 
the pail in it so that the fine pieces of paraffin 
would melt. Bob stirred the mixture frequently 
with a flat piece of wood. “ See if you can find 
a big bucket, Eggie,” he said. 

“ That’s easy,” replied the Egg. ‘‘ I know 
where there’s one begging me to take it.” 

The Egg knew what he was talking about, for 
he returned immediately with a heavy iron-bound 
bucket that he said he had found “ in the well.” 
Bob and Fred crowded the large piece of canvas 
into it and then poured some of the mixture over 
it. 

“ Now,” cried Bob, ‘‘ work it in with your 
fingers, Fred! That’s the way! You’ve got to 
work fast, or the wax will cool before you know 
it.” 

“ Gosh,” said Fred, making a wry face, ‘‘ the 
fumes of that stuff are fierce! ” 

“You said it, Fred!” exclaimed the Egg, 


EAGLE SCOUT 


55 


holding his nose. “Lucky we didn’t try this 
stunt inside the cabin.” 

At the end of several minutes Bob and Fred 
drew the canvas forth and hung it over the branch 
of a tree to dry. 

“ It looks awfully dirty,” said Fred. 

“Yes, so it does,” the Scoutmaster agreed, 
“ but that doesn’t matter so long as it keeps the 
water off you.” 

Finally the boys applied the ill-smelling mix¬ 
ture to the two sides of the tent, and when all 
three pieces were hanging like a Monday-morn¬ 
ing wash on the tree someone suggested dinner. 

“ Well,” said Mr. McGregor, “ who among us 
are going to use the tent first? ” 

“ Bob! ” cried half a dozen voices. “ He did 
most of the work on it.” 

“ And Fred,” added several others. 

It was useless for the two boys to protest; their 
comrades all insisted that they deserved the 
honor. 

“ But the tent is big enough for three,” said 
Bob. 

“ All right,” replied Ralph. “ Let’s vote to 
see who the third shall be.” 

As a result Harold was chosen; and he and 


56 


BOB HANSON 


Bob and Fred decided to start on their inland 
and overnight hike as soon as dinner was finished. 

“ Bring back some good specimens,” said the 
Scoutmaster. 

“ I know of something I’m going to look for,” 
said Bob. 

“What?” demanded the rest of the Troop 
almost in one voice. 

“ It’s something that’s hard to find except at 
night,” replied Bob. Then he grinned. “ If I 
find it, you’ll know; if I don’t, you won’t.” 

“ Oh, gosh,” said the Egg, trying to look 
grieved, “ there goes my good night’s rest! ” 

“ Curiosity killed a cat, Eggie,” said Tommy. 

“ I wonder what poor pussy wanted to know? ” 
the Egg said thoughtfully. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE CAMP IN THE VALLEY 

Bob was jubilant over the thought of going off 
into the woods to spend the night, and he lost no 
time in getting ready. As soon as he had swal¬ 
lowed dinner he packed his haversack, rolled a 
blanket and knotted it over his shoulder, and then 
examined his shoes and stockings so as to make 
sure that he should have no blisters. Fred and 
Harold were quite as busy as he. Finally all 
three announced that they were ready. 

“ Haven’t you fellows forgotten something? ” 
the Egg inquired as they were about to set forth. 

“No, I guess not,” replied Fred. 

“ Sure you have; you’ve forgotten the tent! ” 

“ That’s so,” Bob replied, laughing. “ Good 
for you, Eggie.” 

Each of the three took a section of the tent and 
rolled it outside his blankets; then amid the cheers 
of the rest of the Troop they took to the trail, 
traveling due west. 

“ Don’t forget the specimens I ” shouted the 
Scoutmaster. 


57 


58 


BOB HANSON. 


“ Hey, Bob,” cried the Egg, don’t forge? 
that thing you’re going to find to-night, will 
you?” 

Bob laughed and waved his hand. 

For almost two hours the three companions 
walked steadily, chatting with one another and 
stopping only long enough to pick up an attrac¬ 
tive stone or to pluck an unusual flower. 

“ I hope we’ll find a spring or a stream before 
night,” said Harold. “ We’ll have to eat dry 
crackers and bacon if we don’t.” 

“ Oh, there must be water somewhere around,” 
Fred said hopefully. 

At the moment they were working their way 
through a dense thicket of young birches and 
alders. In front of them the sun was a great ball 
of burnished gold swimming in a sea of deep blue. 
Occasionally they would reach an open place in 
the thicket, and the slanting rays would make 
them blink and shade their eyes. 

“ Gee, it’s hot here,” said Harold. “ There’s 
not a breeze stirring.” 

But half an hour later when they had left the 
thicket and climbed a steep slope they felt a cool 
breeze behind them. During the next quarter of 
an hour they had to bend their backs and toil up- 


EAGLE SCOUT 


59 


ward over rocks and fallen trees and deep gullies 
that the spring rains had cut in the hillside. At 
last, puffing and perspiring with the exertion, 
they reached the top; and then all three gave a 
shout of triumph. 

“ Look! ” exclaimed Bob, pointing downward. 
“ Who would want a better place to camp than 
that? ” 

At the foot of the hill stretched a long narrow 
valley carpeted with green; and through the 
middle of it, twisting like a long dark piece of 
satin ribbon, ran a small stream. 

“If that doesn’t look like a picture!” ex¬ 
claimed Harold. “ I’m glad I brought a camera 
along.” 

Harold took half a dozen snapshots as soon as 
the boys reached the little valley. Then all three 
set their packs down on a smooth stretch beside a 
curve in the little stream, and Bob and Fred 
went to cut poles for the tent. 

Meanwhile, Harold crossed the meadow and 
began to gather a supply of fuel for the fire. 

It took the boys perhaps fifteen minutes to 
'pitch their tent and stow their equipment inside. 
They faced the opening toward the south so that 
it overlooked a bend in the stream. Then Bob 


60 


BOB HANSON 


and Harold started a small cooking fire out in 
front and began to prepare supper. 

“ What’s to eat, Bob? ” asked Fred. “ Here’s 
the bacon I carried, and here are some crackers.” 

“ Well, there’s also rice and some cheese,” Bob 
replied; “and Harold has some raisins. But 
we’ll have to save something for breakfast.” 

The food was simple enough, but later as the 
three boys sat down to eat it they told one another 
that a chicken dinner could not possibly taste any 
better. 

The little camp was in an ideal spot. On 
three sides the wooded hills sloped gently to the 
green carpeted meadow. To the south the valley 
widened and then opened, and in the distance 
they could see a chain of rounded peaks, lavender 
and gold in the afterglow. What little wind 
there was came from the north and barely stirred 
the short grass of the meadow. The little stream 
rippled and gurgled over rocks and rounded the 
little hillocks of grass that dotted it here and 
there. 

“ That stream is better than an orchestra,” said 
Fred. “ Just listen to it; you can pick out little 
airs every once in a while.” 

“ It isn’t everyone who can have music with 


EAGLE SCOUT 


61 


his meals,” said Bob, smiling. “ As for me, give 
me the ripple of a brook or the roar of a rapid 
every time.” 

“ Or the pounding of surf,” added Harold. 

Bob nodded. As he sat there eating and 
listening, and watching the sky and the hillsides 
changing color, he felt that he had never before 
been so happy. The whole Troop was composed 
of fine fellows, the finest in the world, but this— 
this was the kind of life that he had always 
wanted to lead ever since he could remember. 

As the shadows deepened, and the last streak 
of pale pink faded, Harold built up the fire 
against three stout backlogs. ‘‘ It will be chilly 
before morning,” he said. “ See, the air is be¬ 
ginning to feel damp already.” 

Long into the evening the boys sat in the open¬ 
ing of the tent and talked; occasionally one of 
them would burst out into a little snatch of song, 
which the others would quickly join in singing. 

Finally Bob got to his feet. “ I think I’ll take 
a stroll through the woods,” he said. “ Who 
wants to come? ” 

“ Not I,” replied Harold. I’m as contented 
as a kitten right here by this friendly little 
fire.” 


62 


BOB HANSON 


“ I guess Ill stay with Harold,” said Fred, 
suppressing a yawn. “ I’m tired somehow.” 

“ Well, I shan’t be long.” Bob reached for his 
flashlight and attached his Scout axe to his belt. 

Outside the glare of the fire he paused until his 
eyes became accustomed to the darkness and then 
started across the meadow in the direction of the 
hill at the west. Though there was no moon, 
there were thousands of stars, and the Milky 
Way showed like a great strip of loose cotton. 
Bob could see things ahead of him well enough 
to walk without stumbling. Already the frogs 
were croaking all over the meadow; and even 
when he had climbed part way up the hill and 
entered the woods he could hear their shrill calls 
far behind him. 

Suddenly he stopped short as he heard some¬ 
thing flutter among the trees at his right. The 
next moment ‘‘ Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo! ” sounded 
sharply on the night air. 

“ Gosh! ” he said to himself. “ How that old 
horned owl startled me! ” 

Again came the weird cry, and he turned to¬ 
ward it. He heard the owl flutter away at his 
approach; but it hooted again, and again he 
started toward it, walking as cautiously as he 


63 


EAGLE SCOUT 

knew how. This time he caught a glimpse of a 
great dark shape as the owl fluttered like a 
shadow across an open space. 

Bob reached the crest of the hill and, thrilled 
with the alluring strangeness of the woods all 
round him, started down the slope on the other 
side. The spell of the night woods was upon 
him. He walked slowly and breathed deep of 
the fragrance of dead leaves, pitch pine, wild 
honeysuckle and a hundred other delightful 
odors. Only occasionally did he use his flash¬ 
light, and then it was to examine some shrub or 
tree that interested him particularly. At the 
foot of the hill he stepped almost to his knees into 
a sluggish stream that flowed among the trees. 

‘‘Ugh!” he exclaimed, for the water was as 
cold as ice. “ Never mind, Joe Miller,” he said, 
calling himself by the nickname he had adopted 
several years ago, “ cold water won’t hurt you.” 

He was squeezing the water from his leggings 
when he spied a silvery gloss on the other side of 
the stream. “Gee whiz!” he exclaimed. 
“ The very thing I hoped I’d find! ” 

He walked down the stream to see whether he 
could find a place narrow enough to cross without 
wetting his feet; but the stream seemed to be 


64 


BOB HANSON 


growing wider in that direction. So he turned 
and walked the other way until a dense tangle of 
undergrowth made him halt. 

“ Well,” he said at last, “ I’m not going back 
without getting some of it.” And striding 
boldly forward, he entered the water. 

Up to his knees he waded, then almost up to his 
hips, and the cold water sent little thrills dancing 
along his spine. But when he reached the other 
shore he quickly forgot his discomfiture. There 
on the bank was the trunk of a fallen tree, which 
time and dampness had turned into touchwood, 
or phosphorus. It glowed all over as the head 
of a match does when you rub it with a moist 
finger in the darkness. 

“ I never saw so much phosphorus in my life! ” 
he thought. “ This certainly is a great find 1 ” 

With his axe he broke off several long strips 
from the log; but they were so remarkably light 
in weight that he decided to carry back twice as 
much as he had planned to carry. 

All round him the little chips of touchwood 
glowed like tiny stars that might have dropped 
from the sky. For perhaps ten minutes he re¬ 
mained standing there, listening to the crickets, 
the twang of two bullfrogs somewhere along the 


EAGLE SCOUT 


65 


stream, and the wild scampering of little unseen 
creatures of the forest—squirrels or chipmunks 
perhaps. Then he turned reluctantly and 
started toward the camp in the valley. His 
wrist-watch showed half-past eleven under the 
flashlight; hut he was not at all sleepy. 

At the top of the hill he spied the glowing 
embers of the camp-fire. A few minutes later he 
was bending over to enter the tent. Harold and 
Fred lay stretched out in their blankets. Fred 
stirred as his chum sat down and began to 
take off his wet leggings. “ ’Lo, Bob,” he said 
sleepily. 

“ See what I’ve got,” said Bob, holding the 
glowing wood in front of his chum’s eyes. 

“ Uh,—pretty ” said Fred and rolled on his 
side. 

“ It’s touchwood,” Bob whispered. ‘‘ Wasn’t 
I lucky to find it? ” 

“ Uh,” said Fred, and Bob grinned, for Fred 
was not much interested in anything just then 
except sleep. 

All three boys awoke early the next morning, 
and the first thing Bob did was to look at his 
specimens of touchwood. The strips appeared 
like ordinary dry rotten wood, light gray in color, 


66 


BOB HANSON 


and of course, since it was daylight, they showed 
no phosphorescent glow whatsoever. 

“ Is that what you showed me last night? ” 
asked Fred. “ I guess I was sort of sleepy, but 
I remember how it glowed.” 

“You certainly were sleepy, Fred! ” said Bob. 
“ Well,” he asked abruptly, “ what are we going 
to do this morning? ” 

“ Oh, just scout around, I guess,” replied 
Fred. “ Remember, we’ve got to find a lot of 
things to take back with us.” 

Right after breakfast the three boys left the 
tent standing and set forth toward the mouth of 
the valley. Flowers and shrubs that were new 
to them seemed to be growing everywhere, and 
they soon had more specimens in their bags than 
they had dared to hope for. 

Harold was digging at a fine clump of reindeer 
moss at the foot of a sharp bluff when he hap¬ 
pened to glance upward. “ Hey, Bob,” he 
shouted suddenly, “ look at the hang-bird’s nest 
overhead! ” 

Bob glanced upward. There, hanging from 
the limb of a gray birch that was growing in a 
crevice on the side of the bluff, was a large oriole’s 
nest. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


67 


“ Oh, say! ” exclaimed Fred. “ Can’t we get 
it somehow? It’s an old nest; see how ragged it 
is on one side.” 

“ Yes, it’s an old one,” said Harold. “ I’m 
positive of that. What do you say. Bob? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Bob doubtfully. He 
was not quite sure that the nest was old, and he 
could not help feeling that whoever tried to reach 
it would risk a bad fall. “ I don’t think I’d 
bother with it,” he said at last. 

“ I’m going to have a close look at it,” said 
Harold. “If it isn’t an old one. I’ll leave it 
where it is. It’s such a beauty I hate to go back 
without it.” And he skirted the bluff and dis¬ 
appeared among the bushes. 

Bob and Fred followed him a few minutes 
later. When they reached the top of the bluff 
Harold was already climbing down toward the 
top branches of the birch. He was having hard 
work of it, for the bluff was of sandstone, and the 
little projections afforded uncertain footholds at 
best. Several times he narrowly escaped falling 
as bits of stone broke beneath his weight and 
went clattering down to the valley. Bob and 
Fred held their breath. 

At last Harold reached one of the upper 


68 


BOB HANSON 


branches and then worked his way down to the 
trunk. Glancing upward, he waved his hand^ 
and after a few minutes’ rest began to climb out 
on the branch at the end of which the nest was 
dangling. Cautiously he moved forward a few 
inches at a time until he was within three or four 
feet of the nest. 

Bob and Fred, watching him anxiously from 
above, saw him reach out with one hand to get it; 
and then both boys uttered a cry of alarm as they 
saw him plunge suddenly downward. 

There was a sharp crash of rending wood, and 
the next thing they saw was the broken branch 
swinging vertically in the wind and Harold cling¬ 
ing helplessly to the end of it. 

‘‘Jupiter!” cried Fred. 

“ Hang on, Harold! ” yelled Bob at the top of 
his voice. “ Hang on, I tell you! ” 

He gave one quick glance over the edge of the 
bluff and then started downward. 

“ Bob,” said Fred, “ what in the name of good¬ 
ness -” 

But Bob hardly heard him. He was not sure 
just what he could do when he reached the tree, 
but he knew that he must do something. The 
broken limb was likely to tear loose at any 



EAGLE SCOUT 69 

moment, and when it did, it would mean at least 
a broken leg or a broken arm for Harold. 

Even as the limb swayed slightly in the breeze 
it creaked frightfully. 

After two or three narrow escapes Bob reached 
the trunk of the birch. There he paused for a 
moment. He was on the point of risking his 
weight on one of the lower branches when he 
noticed a ledge farther down on the bluff. In a 
second his mind was made up, and he was lower¬ 
ing himself toward it. “Hang on!” he yelled 
again. 

Bob reached the ledge, which was almost on a 
level with Harold’s knees, and the first thing he 
did was to reach out as far as he could with one 
hand. But the dangling boy was a good five feet 
beyond the tips of his fingers. 

In a flash Bob whipped off his belt and secured 
one end of it round his wrist. With his left hand 
he grasped a stout root of the tree. “ See if you 
can catch it! ” he shouted and then swung the belt 
in an arc toward Harold, who released one hand 
and made a wild grasp at it, but missed. 

Again Bob swung the belt, but the end flashed 
just out of Harold’s reach. “ Try and swing 
this way a little! ” Bob shouted. 


70 


BOB HANSON 


Harold kicked outward with his feet; the 
branch creaked and began to swing back and 
forth like a huge pendulum. When Bob tossed 
the belt again, Harold caught it and quickly 
made a turn with it round his wrist. Then Bob 
pulled him slowly toward the ledge; his breath 
came in short gasps and the muscles in his arms 
and chest began to ache dully. 

Now Harold was barely two feet from the 
ledge; now he was less than a foot. Then— 
crack !—and with all his strength Bob pulled on 
the strap. As the branch dropped, Harold’s left 
hand struck the ledge, slipped off and clutched 
again; but his grip with his right was firm, and 
for an instant he hung by the strap alone. Then 
he got hold of the ledge again, and Bob had him 
by the wrist with both hands. A few moments 
later he was kneeling beside Bob on the narrow 
ledge. 

It was not until ten minutes later when both 
boys had tediously worked their way to the base 
of the bluff that Harold spoke. “ Bob,” he said 
unsteadily, “ I—I don’t know what to say to you. 
I—I had no business trying to get that nest.” 

“ Never mind,” said Bob. “ It turned out all 
right! ” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


71 


“Yes,” said Fred as he appeared round one 
side of the bluff, “ it turned out all right—^thanks 
to you. Bob! ” 

The three Scouts looked at one another in 
silence for several minutes. Then Harold held 
up one hand. “ Never again,” he said slowly. 

With his knife Bob cut the oriole’s nest from 
the broken limb. “ You were right,” he said; 
“ the nest is an old one. I’m glad of that.” 

They carried it back to the tent, and all three 
were unusually quiet as they set about packing 
their equipment. But long before they reached 
the mouth of Rocky River they were chatting 
with one another about their hike. 


CHAPTER VIII 


ON THE ISLE OF KOCKS 

Bob and Fred and Harold reached the harbor 
shortly after the Troop had sat down to dinner. 

“ Yea! ” shouted the Egg. “ Here they come! 
Hey, Bob, did you find that thing you said you 
could look for only at night? ” 

“Yes, Eggie; here it is.” Bob tossed him a 
piece of the wood. 

“ Looks like phosphorous wood,” said the Egg 
immediately. 

“ That’s what it is,” said Fred. 

The Red Foxes, who had cooked the meal, had 
prepared an extra amount of food partly in ex¬ 
pectation that the three explorers would return 
in time to eat it. Now everyone made room for 
them in the large half-circle they had formed on 
the beach; and when the three had had their mess- 
kits filled they sat down in the sand. “We had 
a wonderful time,” said Bob, “ but I tell you it’s 
good to get back again.” 

Not until all the boys had finished eating did 
72 


EAGLE SCOUT 


73 


Fred begin the story of the trip. Everyone 
listened with breathless interest as he told of the 
adventure on the face of the bluff, and when he 
came to the end not a few turned and glanced at 
the Scoutmaster. 

Mr. McGregor looked grave for a moment or 
two; then he smiled. “ I certainly am glad that 
no one was hurt,” he said. 

At that Harold, who had expected at least a 
mild reprimand, said, ‘‘ It was a fool stunt that I 
did, and the only reason I didn’t break a leg or 
an arm was because Bob here had the presence of 
mind to come to my rescue. Next time I’ll think 
twice before I act once.” 

After dinner the Troop looked at the speci¬ 
mens the boys had brought and then stowed them 
aboard the Glen Gray, Already the sloop re¬ 
sembled a small floating museum; almost one- 
third of the space forward was filled with various 
samples of woods, stones, books of pressed plants 
and leaves, shells and seaweed and numerous odds 
and ends from the shore and the woods. Every¬ 
thing was neatly labeled,—Ralph saw to that,— 
and everything was carefully placed and packed 
so that the rolling of the boat would not cause the 
cargo to shift. 


74 


BOB HANSON 


“ I think we’ve done very well so far,” said the 
Scoutmaster that evening. “ Some of the things 
we have collected are really valuable—things that 
almost any museum would be glad to have. But 
we’ll keep right on collecting, and when we finally 
return to Cedarville I miss my guess if folks 
don’t sit up and take notice.” 

“ Gee,” said the Egg, “ I hope that no pirate 
vessel comes along and captures the Glen Gray! ” 

“ Old Eggie Gloom,” said Tommy, giving him 
a push. “ If pirates ever capture us they’d make 
you walk the plank first thing; pirates don’t carry 
useless cargo around with them.” 

“The Egg isn’t cargo,” said Jimmy; “he’s 
just so much baggage.” 

“ I’d say he was just so much junk,” added 
Reddy. 

“ Say,” exclaimed the Egg indignantly, “ if 
you fellows can’t agree, I’m not going to play. 
Now what am I, cargo or baggage or junk? ” 

“ None of the three,” replied Bob promptly; 
“ you’re the only Egg in the world that can’t be 
beaten.” 

At that everyone laughed, and the Egg 
loudest of all. “ I’m discovered at last! ” he 
said. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


75 


Early the next morning the Glen Gray, with 
sails furled, chugged out of the river mouth. A 
slight headwind was blowing, and it increased as 
the sun rose. But the little gasoline engine sent 
the sloop along at a merry clip, and “ Dimples ” 
Davis at the wheel guided her as close to the shore 
as he dared. The rest of the boys, all of them as 
tanned as Indians, sat ori the edge of the cockpit 
or on the forward deck, laughing and talking 
comfortably. 

That night they found a small natural harbor, 
and the next day at noon they stopped at a little 
seaside town and replenished their stock of pro¬ 
visions and added to their supply of gasoline. 
By this time everyone was at home on board the 
sloop; and several, among them Bob and Fred 
and Reddy, felt so sure of their seamanship that 
they said they could get the Glen Gray home 
alone if they ever should have to do so. 

It was late on the fifth day since they had left 
Rocky River that they sighted a stretch of white 
beach with a long promontory at the end of it 
that reached out and almost touched a small 
irregular rocky island. 

“ What land is that ahead? ” asked Ted. 

“ Go and look at Uncle’s chart,” replied 


76 BOB HANSON 

Reddy, nodding in the direction of Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor. 

Evidently the island, which at low tide must 
have been a part of the promontory, had no 
name; at least, the chart did not show one. So 
Reddy called it the Isle of Rocks, and the name 
proved to be popular with the rest of the 
Troop. 

“ Dimples ” headed the Glen Gray straight for 
it, and less than an hour later the sloop nosed her 
way into a small rock-inclosed haven on the 
southwestern side. 

Reddy certainly had chosen a good name for 
the island, which really was little more than a 
great black rock that pushed up out of the sea. 
There was little vegetation on it—a few dwarf 
pines on the southern slope, patches of tough 
yellow grass, various sickly looking shrubs and 
plants from seeds that birds had carried, and here 
and there vari-colored heather growing in niches 
and crevices. 

The Troop landed, not without some difficulty, 
and began at once to climb to the highest point. 
As the intruders approached, hundreds of sea 
birds filled the air with their screams and then 
flew off over the water. 


EAGLE SCOUT 77 

“ I’ll bet we’re the first ones ever to set foot on 
this land/’ said “ Nellie ” Paynter. 

“ We’re certainly the first Scouts to do it,” 
said Ted. “ It’s the wildest, bleakest island I 
ever saw.” 

But in spite of the fact that there seemed to be 
so little on the island the boys managed to find a 
good many new specimens to add to their increas¬ 
ing collection. Among them were some eggs that 
the wind had blown from the hundreds of nests 
on the north side. Picking up three or four that 
were unbroken, they carefully perforated the 
ends with a needle and blew the contents out. 

“ We’ll have to pack these carefully in cotton,” 
said Fred; “ even so, we’ll be lucky to get them 
home whole.” 

Bob’s patrol slept on board the sloop that 
night, and the Wildcats and the Red Foxes 
spread their blankets and built a camp-fire on a 
broad flat rock well above the high water mark. 
In the morning the tide was low, and the boys 
found that they could walk almost to the main¬ 
land without getting their feet wet. 

Later when the tide turned they got out their 
fishing lines and, using such bait as they had at 
hand, fished from the rocks. Either the fish were 


78 


BOB HANSON 


exceedingly hungry, or the bait, poor as it 
seemed, was exactly to their taste; for no one 
caught fewer than half a dozen fish apiece. 
Most of them were fluke and flounders. 

“ It’s not like catching bass,” said Bob as he 
pulled up a large fluke and then began to wind 
his line. 

“ No, but it’s good fun,” said Fred. “ Say,” 
he added, “ aren’t we catching too many? What 
shall we do with all of them? ” 

“ For one thing we’ll have a fine fish dinner,” 
replied Mr. McGregor. “ Flounders are my 
favorite salt-water fish. Those that we don’t eat 
we can salt and put away; it won’t hurt to have 
a small supply of salt fish on hand.” 

“ Too bad we can’t take one or two of each kind 
back to the museum,” remarked the Egg. 

Tommy was about to make some joking reply, 
when Ralph said hastily, “ I don’t see why we 
can’t; that is, we can do something just as 
good.” 

“ What’s Ralph got up his sleeve now? ” asked 
Ted. 

“ Hope it isn’t a fish,” said the Egg. 

“ No,” replied Ralph, laughing; “ wait a 
minute and I’ll show you how to take back a fish 


EAGLE SCOUT 


79 


without robbing the frying-pan at the same time. 
He went to the sloop and returned directly with 
several sheets of heavy white paper, some muci¬ 
lage and a black pencil. “ Where’s that big 
fluke you caught, Bob ? ” he asked. 

Bob passed the limp fish to his friend, and 
Ralph placed it on top of a sheet of flat paper 
and carefully drew the outline of it with his 
pencil. The boys watched with much interest as 
he lifted the fluke off and then sketched in the 
mouth, the eye, the gill and some of the scales. 

“ Good idea, Ralph,” said Arthur. 

‘‘ Yes, but why leave the fins and the tail off? ” 
asked Tommy. 

“ Watch and you’ll see why,” Ralph answered. 

With his knife he cut the tail off the dead fluke 
and, applying some of the mucilage to it, stuck 
it in place on the drawing. Then he did the same 
with the fins and finally scraped off some of the 
scales and fixed them to the drawing also. 
When he had made a few more strokes here and 
there with his pencil there was no mistaking the 
exact size and kind of fish that the ‘‘ picture ” 
represented. But for the sake of accuracy he 
noted the name of the fish on the paper and added 
the date and the place where it had been caught. 


80 


BOB HANSON. 


“ Ralph has a great head,” said the Egg. “ I 
suppose that’s a fish-picture and will go in your 
fish-hook, Ralph? ” 

“Surely; you wouldn’t put it among the 
pressed flowers, would you? The best of it is,” 
Ralph continued, “ you don’t need to be an artist 
to make a picture like this.” 

“ It’s a fine stunt,” said the Scoutmaster. “ I 
hope you can make some pictures of other kinds 
of fish.” 

Later in the day, Ralph made “ pictures ” of a 
flounder, a killifish, several kinds of minnows and 
a small mullet; and after that all during the rest 
of the trip every new kind of fish that was caught 
was—as the Egg said—handed to Ralph to have 
its picture taken. 

“ I always wondered what people meant by 
marine photography,” said the Egg; “ now I 
know—thanks to Ralph.” 

But while the Glen Gray lay at anchor in the 
little rock-bound harbor the boys learned some¬ 
thing more about fish; and it was Bob that was 
responsible for the idea. He and Reddy were 
lying full length on deck watching a small school 
of minnows disposing round the chain of the 
anchor, when Reddy said, “ I wish we could see 


81 


EAGLE SCOUT 

them better, Bob; sometimes when I’m watching 
one, and waiting to see what he’s going to do 
next, he disappears right before my eyes.” 

“ Well,” Bob replied, “ why not make a water- 
telescope? ” 

“ Gosh, I never thought of that,” said Reddy. 
“ Come on, let’s do it.” 

In the cabin the boys found a small piece of 
ordinary glass and a wooden box that had held 
crackers. Working together, they made the tele¬ 
scope in less than an hour and a half. It was 
merely a box six inches square and three and a 
half feet long; one end was open, and the other 
was covered with the piece of glass. With wax 
from a couple of candles they made all the seams 
water-tight. 

“ There,” said Bob, ‘‘ now go and look at the 
shiners, Reddy.” 

Reddy poked the glass-covered end of the 
telescope below the surface of the water and, 
pulling his jacket well up over his head to shut 
out the light, peered into the other end. For 
several minutes he lay on the deck, moving the 
telescope now this way, now that. At last he 
lifted his head and handed the box to Bob. 
“ Gosh, it’s interesting down there,” he said. 


82 


BOB HANSON 


Bob looked into the telescope. There were the 
minnows—^he could see them as plain as day— 
chasing one another, diving and darting here and 
there and shining like silver whenever they turned 
sidewise. It almost seemed as if he were down 
there with them, so plainly could he see. There 
were other things also. There was a long eel 
wriggling among the rocky projections; there 
were two crabs moving about on the sandy bot¬ 
tom—now and then they would approach each 
other and the next instant back away suddenly; 
there was seaweed of all patterns waving like lacy 
curtains with the tide; there were shells and 
pebbles and some strange creature like a huge 
spider that was crawling over them. 

“ I never realized that the bottom of the ocean 
was so interesting,” said Bob. “ Why, parts of 
it remind you of trees and grass and thickets! ” 

The rest of the Troop were as much interested 
in using the water-telescope as Bob and Reddy 
were; and Ralph, who certainly was an ideal 
Troop historian, at once began to record the 
things he had seen at various points on the island. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE STORM 

The sky was cloudless when the Glen Gray 
rounded the easternmost point of the Isle of 
Rocks and started north. Everybody was in ex¬ 
ceptionally good spirits; the warm sun, the fresh 
westerly wind and the rhythmic dipping of the 
little sloop were enough to make the heart light. 
And yet before noon the sun had gone out of 
sight, the wind had risen and shifted round to the 
northeast, and the sloop was staggering along 
like a lame race-horse. 

“ Gosh! ” exclaimed Arthur. “ That wind is 
getting stronger every minute.” 

“ Lucky weVe got the gasoline engine,” said 
Harold. 

The boys had hauled the sail down half an hour 
ago, and now the sloop was depending altogether 
on the staunch little engine. Fred, who was at 
the wheel, kept her nose pointed into the wind 
most of the time; but even so she made some lee¬ 
way toward the coast. 


83 


84 


BOB HANSON 


Bob and the Scoutmaster were keeping a sharp 
lookout for a harbor. But for the most part the 
shore was high and rocky; they had not seen a fair 
harbor ever since they had left the island, 

“ Looks like trouble to me/’ whispered Ted to 
Alec. “ How that wind does blow! ” 

Here and there they could see other boats 
scurrying before the wind; and far off to the east 
Bob distinguished, with the aid of his glass, a 
four-masted schooner heavily loaded and plung¬ 
ing along, close-reefed. “ She’s having a hard 
time of it, sir,” he remarked to the Scoutmaster. 

Mr. McGregor nodded and with his glass 
swept the line of coast. Little worried wrinkles 
showed in his forehead. 

Spray was now beginning to break frequently 
over the bow. There were a bite and a chill to 
the wind that struck to the bone. Overhead the 
sky was almost black, and all round the horizon 
there was a broad streak of sickly yellow- 
green. 

By three o’clock no one could see anything of 
the shore except a narrow thread of white surf. 
And, what was more alarming, the engine was 
beginning to miss a stroke every few minutes. 

Up to that time the experience had only 


85 


EAGLE SCOUT 

thrilled Bob; it had seemed to him an exciting 
circumstance to be caught in a storm. Now, 
however, as the engine missed and hesitated and 
a great swell rolled the sloop sidewise, he glanced 
nervously at his companions. The Egg was 
grinning, but his face was white against his drip¬ 
ping oilskins. Fred’s mouth was set in a firm 
line as he held the wheel. Ralph and Reddy 
were crouching in the cockpit and glancing now 
and then at the Scoutmaster as if waiting for 
orders. The other boys were gathered inside 
the cabin. 

‘‘ Bob! ” the Scoutmaster shouted through the 
wind and spray. “ Make sure that everybody 
has a life-preserver.” 

“ Aye, aye, sir.” And Bob lurched into the 
cabin, where Tommy and Ted were already tak¬ 
ing the canvas-covered corks from their places in 
the ceiling. 

Bob staggered out, dragging five life-pre¬ 
servers behind him and handed one to each of the 
five outside. Then he returned and got one for 
himself. 

“ I’ll take the wheel, Fred,” said Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor. “ You’d better get a rest; you’ll need 
it.” 


86 


BOB HANSON 


But as soon as Fred had left the wheel he went 
to the engine and began to tinker with it. For 
perhaps ten minutes it worked as it should; then 
a heavy sea broke broadside, and it began to miss 
again. 

“ Hey, Harold! ” shouted Bob. ‘‘ Pass out a 
couple of buckets.” 

In a moment Bob and Reddy were at work 
bailing out the water that was swashing round in 
the cockpit. 

During the next five minutes Bob thought 
surely that the little craft would founder. The 
wind seemed suddenly to redouble in fury; the 
sky all round and especially overhead grew as 
black as a winter evening; and the waves tossed 
their ragged white tops more than twice as high 
as the cabin. Then the engine stopped com¬ 
pletely, and the Glen Gray rolled giddily first 
this way and then that. 

Bob was holding fast desperately with one 
hand on the port side of the cockpit and the other 
on the top of the cabin. In the gloom he could 
see the little bowsprit rising—^up, up, up. The 
next moment all the breath left his body as the 
bow dropped. There was a heavy smack and a 
crash of wood, and he saw the bowsprit hanging 


EAGLE SCOUT 


87 


twisted on one side. Another loud smack, a 
heavy lurch, and he felt himself go shooting 
across the cockpit into Reddy’s arms. 

“ R-Reddy! ” he cried, half strangled with the 
water that the last wave had poured aboard. 

As the sloop came once more to an even keel 
he looked back over his shoulder. Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor was leaning far to port, and his arms 
were straining at the spokes of the wheel. Bob 
heard him shout something, but the wind carried 
the words out across the water. The next in¬ 
stant the little boat seemed to tremble from stem 
to stern. The mast dipped far to leeward, and 
the forward deck slanted like the roof of a house. 
Then there was a smack, smack of waves along 
the port side, and all of a sudden Bob felt the 
gale at his back. They had turned and were run¬ 
ning before the wind! 

But the crew of the Glen Gray were far from 
being out of danger. With the engine lying 
dead in the cockpit, Mr. McGregor was having 
all he could do to keep the wind from blowing 
the sloop broadside. Bob and Reddy worked 
like beavers with the buckets; it seemed that just 
as they would get most of the water out of the 
cockpit a fresh wave would spill its crest over the 


88 


BOB HANSON 


side. In spite of their oilskins they were soaked 
through and through. 

Once Bob glanced at his wrist-watch; it had 
stopped at ten minutes past six. All round them 
the darkness hung like a thick black blanket. 
Somewhere off the starboard bow a bell-buoy 
was tolling its melancholy notes. And once Bob 
thought he saw a faint light far ahead of them. 
He crept to the wheel and shouted the informa¬ 
tion into the Scoutmaster’s ear. 

“ Might be a ship,” Mr. McGregor shouted in 
reply. ‘‘ What color? ” 

“Yellow. Look! There it is again! ” 

“ I think it’s a ship,” replied the Scoutmaster. 
“We ought to show a light, too.” 

Without replying. Bob made his way back to 
the cabin. There after much difficulty he and 
Ted and Jimmy succeeded in lighting the cabin 
lamp and the two side lanterns. Bob passed the 
port lantern out to the Egg, who managed to 
hang it in place. Reddy swung the other lantern 
in place on the starboard side. He had just 
dropped back into the cockpit when an unusually 
large sea broke on the quarter, and the port light 
struck the deck with a splintery crash. 

“ Darn it! ” said the Egg. 


89 


EAGLE SCOUT 

A few minutes later another sea broke astern, 
and the cabin lamp went out. 

With only one light showing, the Glen Gray 
plowed along through the night. Tommy and 
Ted had found two extra buckets and were doing 
their best to help Bob and Reddy to keep the 
cockpit free of water. 

Meanwhile, Fred was working over the dead 
engine by the light of his pocket flashlight, and at 
last he succeeded in getting it started. The sound 
of it gave the whole Troop fresh courage. But 
better than that, perhaps, the steady turning of 
the propeller made the sloop ride the waves more 
evenly and helped the Scoutmaster to keep the 
wind always at the stern. After that the waves 
broke less and less frequently over the side. 

“ Do you know where we are? ” Bob asked 
the Scoutmaster. 

“ Can’t tell for sure, but we must be well 
beyond the Isle of Rocks. Don’t see any more 
of the light that was ahead of us.” 

Nor did anyone see the light again. Perhaps 
the sea had put it out as it had put out the port 
light of the Glen Gray. Perhaps the craft that 
had showed it had gone down in the worst storm 
that had swept the Atlantic coast that summer. 


90 


BOB HANSON 


All night long the Glen Gray beat to the south, 
fighting the wind that sought to snap her stout 
spars, fighting the waves that sought to smash 
her sturdy hull. It was the gamest kind of 
fight; the little sloop gave the best she had in her. 
Not one of the crew thought of giving up; every¬ 
one was alert. Those who were inside the cabin 
remained there only because there was nothing 
they could do outside. Bob and Reddy, and 
Ralph and Fred and the Egg stuck to their posts 
in the cockpit. The Scoutmaster clung to the 
wheel and kept his eyes glued on the darkness 
ahead. Twice before day broke, the engine went 
dead, but each time Fred got it started somehow. 

And finally the first streak of light showed in 
the sky to the east. The worst of the storm 
seemed past, but the sea was high, and the wind 
was still strong. Some of the boys had dropped 
asleep from sheer nervous tension and fatigue, 
but with daylight coming on they soon were wide 
awake. 

“ Just look at Uncle there at the wheel! ” ex¬ 
claimed Bob. 

“ He’s a wonder all right.” 

“ How about yourself? ” inquired Fred, smil¬ 
ing. “ You managed to get around like an old 


EAGLE SCOUT 91 

sailor. I didn’t dare move away from this 
engine.” 

“ I’m glad you didn’t,” replied Bob gravely. 

The increasing light showed land off the 
starboard bow, and, since the wind was growing 
less violent, Mr. McGregor worked gradually 
toward it. At ten o’clock they sighted a crescent¬ 
shaped bay ahead and a small village at the lower 
end of it. The Scoutmaster turned the wheel 
over to Bob, and an hour later the gallant sloop, 
with bowsprit hanging on one side and all lights 
gone except one, limped up the harbor toward a 
mass of boats that were tossing their masts as 
they lay at anchor. 

The bay proved to be Fisherman’s Harbor, 
and the village at the lower end, the town of 
Westerly. Bob promptly chose the end of the 
breakwater and headed for it. The boys eased 
the sloop off and made her fast and then for the 
first time in many long hours breathed a sigh of 
relief. 

“ Gosh,” said the Egg, “ it’s great to be on dry 
land again—after that! ” 


CHAPTER X 


RED^ YELLOW AND BLUE CLAY 

No one complained because the storm had 
driven the Glen Gray almost forty miles to the 
south. Every boy in the Troop realized too 
keenly how near they had come to death to feel 
bad about losing a little time. 

“ I tell you/’ said Fred as they all stood on the 
end of the breakwater, “ last night certainly was 
a thriller. Even now as I think of the wind and 
the waves little cold shivers run up and down my 
back.” 

“ Same here,” said Boh; “ hut now we’re safe.” 

“ And hungry,” the Egg reminded him. 

“ There must be an old inn somewhere in the 
village,” said the Scoutmaster. “ Let’s go and 
find it.” 

The boys needed no further urging, and the 
Scoutmaster led the way toward the town. 

The people looked at them curiously, and one 
or two fishermen asked who they were. Mr. 
McGregor was glad to tell them and in return 
learned that The Big Tree Inn was situated at 
92 


EAGLE SCOUT 


93 


the upper end of the main street. They found 
it easily, and as they entered, the proprietor 
appeared and welcomed them with a broad smile. 
“ You’re just in time for dinner, if that’s what 
you want,” he said. 

“ That’s just exactly what we came here for,” 
the Scoutmaster replied with a twinkle in his 
eyes. “ Have you got enough food to feed us 
all? ” 

“ I think I have,” said the man, and the Egg 
looked relieved. “ That is, if you care for 
ducks.” 

The Egg glanced at Bob and winked know¬ 
ingly. 

“ I guess a duck dinner wouldn’t make any of 
us feel bad,” said the Scoutmaster, smiling. 

“ I should sa-ay not! ” exclaimed several boys 
in one breath. 

As the man hastened from the room the Troop 
seated themselves in front of a great stone fire¬ 
place in which a small fire of twigs was burning. 
The inn, they learned later, dated back to the 
Revolution and had once served as the head¬ 
quarters of a brigade of Redcoats. The rafters 
in the room were bare and heavy; the windows 
were small and had tiny square panes of old 


94 


BOB HANSON 


glass. Everything about the place seemed old— 
the rag rugs on the floor, the three-legged stool 
in front of the fire, the rusty flintlock musket 
above the mantelpiece, and the dim woodcuts on 
the walls. In an open space between two of the 
windows hung a framed parchment that stated 
that Lothrop Niles, the first owner of the house, 
had held a captain’s commission in Washington’s 
army. 

Mr. McGregor, who had served overseas, ex¬ 
amined the parchment with a great deal of in¬ 
terest, and as Bob watched him standing there 
between the two windows he felt a sudden thrill 
of pride for his country—his country, which had 
been born in the cause of liberty and which, 
almost a century and a half later, had sent its 
sons across three thousand miles of ocean that the 
liberty of the world might not perish. 

Half an hour after the Troop had entered the 
old inn the proprietor announced that dinner was 
ready, and at his bidding the boys made one long 
table of the three small ones in the room and 
seated themselves with Mr. McGregor at the 
head of it. That dinner was one of the high 
spots of the whole cruise. Duck is a tasty 
delicacy at any time; but when you have been 


EAGLE SCOUT 


95 


living on camp rations for a month it seems quite 
the finest food that ever graced the table of any 
king. With the duck there were mashed pota¬ 
toes flecked with pepper, golden summer squash, 
fresh lima beans and delicious brown gravy; there 
were apple pie, lemon pie and rich creamy milk 
to drink. And best of all there was enough and 
to spare of everything. 

“ I could eat more,” said the Egg when he had 
finished his second piece of apple pie, “ but I 
don’t think it would be wise.” 

“ Nor I either,” agreed the Scoutmaster, and 
the proprietor joined in the good-natured laugh 
that followed. 

At last the boys pushed their chairs back from 
the table, and the Scoutmaster drew the pro¬ 
prietor into one corner and paid the bill. ‘‘ I 
shall always remember you for this fine dinner,” 
he said. 

“ And I shall always remember you for the 
fine, bright-eyed group of lads with you,” was the 
quick reply. 

On the way back to the sloop Mr. McGregor 
got an old ship’s carpenter to come with them and 
examine the boat with a view to repairing the 
damage. Though the boys themselves might 


96 


BOB HANSON 


have fixed the broken bowsprit they would not 
have been able to tell whether any other part of 
the boat had suffered from the storm. The 
Scoutmaster suspected that some of the seams in 
the hull had opened with the strain. 

An examination proved that Mr. McGregor’s 
suspicions were well founded. Several seams 
close to the engine had opened, and the old car¬ 
penter said that, although the little boat would 
not have to go into dry dock, it would take three 
days to mend her properly. 

“ Too bad to have to stay here three days,” 
said Harold. 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” said the Egg, rubbing 
his stomach. “ If we have a duck dinner-” 

“ Don’t fool yourself, Eggie,” Tommy inter¬ 
rupted. “ You’ve eaten your first and last duck 
dinner this year! ” 

Wondering just how they should spend the 
three days in the sleepy little village, the Troop 
rigged the tarpaulin over the cockpit that night 
and stretched part of the lean-to tent across two 
ropes on the forward deck. Since it seemed 
wisest to spend their nights on board ship, they 
were determined to have plenty of room for 
sleeping. 



EAGLE SCOUT 


97 


The next morning the first thing that Bob 
noticed as he crawled from beneath the tarpaulin 
was the sun shining on the bluffs on the other side 
of the little harbor; in the bright yellow glare the 
rough dirt showed broad streaks of red, blue and 
orange. He called the Scoutmaster’s attention 
to it. 

“ Oh, that’s Bright’s Bluff,” said Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor. “ The various colors come from differ¬ 
ent layers of clay. Maybe some of us could go 
over there this morning.” 

“ There are boats for hire at the next wharf,” 
suggested Bob. 

The result was that Bob, Fred, Reddy and the 
Egg hired a rowboat and, crossing the stretch of 
water, climbed the bluff. The clay was fine and 
hard-baked on the surface, but it crumbled be¬ 
neath their feet and clung to their shoes like 
paint. 

“ It’s a peculiar formation all right,” said 
Fred, “ but what good is it? ” 

“ None I guess,” replied Bob. “ No! ” he 
added suddenly. I tell you what, Fred, why 
can’t we carry some back to the museum with 
us?” 

“ Good idea. Bob,” said the Egg. 


98 


BOB HANSON 


“ I know something better than that,” said 
Reddy. “ Let’s take a lot of it back to the sloop 
and make dishes and things with it. We could 
build a small oven on the beach and bake them; 
or we could do as the Aztec Indians used to do— 
bake the stuff in the sun.” 

“ Good for you, Reddy! ” cried Bob. “ Now 
if we can only find something to carry it in 1 ” 

Fortunately there was plenty of driftwood 
along the shore, and Reddy and Fred, descending 
the steep slope, soon found several boxes. The 
boys filled them with the various kinds of clay 
and after some difficulty got them down to the 
rowboat. 

“ Hey, you fellows,” Arthur shouted from the 
breakwater as they approached, “ what’s in those 
boxes? ” 

“ Dirt,” replied the Egg. 

“Dirt? What for?” 

“ Oh, just to make mud-pies with,” said the 
Egg impudently. 

“ Stop your fooling, Eggie,” said Arthur. 

At that moment the Scoutmaster stepped 
ashore from the Glen Gray, “ Ah,” he said. 
“ Going to make some crockery? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” replied Bob. “ It’s Reddy’s idea.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


99 


When the rest of the Troop, who had been 
scouring round the village, returned to the sloop 
they found Bob and Reddy busily mixing colored 
clay while the other boys were hard at work build¬ 
ing a stone oven bn the beach near by. 

It was good fun mixing the three colors and 
blending them into all sorts of patterns. But the 
first samples of crockery were more grotesque 
than they were beautiful. Even to mould an 
ordinary shallow bowl and have it perfectly 
round was no easy matter. Some were too thick 
on one side, and too thin on the other; some were 
lop-sided with rough edges everywhere including 
the bottoms; some were perfectly smooth all over, 
but somehow didn’t look just right. Out of the 
first dozen bowls that the boys made they picked 
two that seemed worth while keeping; those they 
allowed to bake in the sun. 

Gradually, however, practice made them more 
skilful, and by the time the oven was ready 
they had a number of bowls and shallow dishes 
that seemed quite satisfactory. Fred built a 
fire in the oven, and the others continued their 
moulding. Bob made a flat dish with red and 
yellow clay and inscribed “ Beavers ” in blue on 
it. And the Scoutmaster made a flat paper- 


100 


BOB HANSON. 

weight with red and blue clay and, using tiny 
white pebbles, printed on it the words, “ Cedar- 
ville Troop No. 1.” Then Fred collected the 
pieces and put them all into the oven. 

In the midst of all the industry the Egg 
slipped away and walked far down the beach 
toward the mouth of the harbor. Half an hour 
passed before he returned, and then he carried 
with him a large round disk of heavy wood that 
might have come from some ship. “ Did you 
fellows ever hear of a potter’s wheel?” he 
asked. 

“ Not I,” several of the boys replied. 

“ All right then. I’ll show you how to make 
one.” 

The Egg fashioned a stout stick and fastened 
it like an axle in the bottom of the disk. Then 
he bored a hole in the top of a box and thrust the 
stick into it. After hammering a good many 
nails and trimming the axle several times with 
his knife, he got the disk so that it would spin like 
a top. The surface of the round heavy piece of 
wood was horizontal and perhaps six inches above 
the box. Next he filled the box with heavy 
stones so that it could not move easily. Then 
from his pocket he drew a long piece of twine 


EAGLE SCOUT 101 

and wound it round and round the stick of wood 
between the top of the box and the disk, 

‘‘ What in the world is it all for? ” asked 
‘‘ Dimples ” Davis. 

“ It’s for moulding clay,” replied the Egg, and 
began slowly to draw the twine toward him. 

The disk turned on its wooden axle, at first 
slowly and then faster as the Egg put more force 
into his pull. 

“ I see,” said Ralph; ‘‘ you put the clay on top 
of the disk, get someone to pull the string for 
you and then shape the clay as it turns.” 

The Egg nodded. “ That’s the only way to 
get it perfectly round,” he said. 

He added another long piece of twine to the 
first piece and wound it up on the axle. The 
Scouts crowded close round him as he quickly 
mixed a handful of blue clay and placed it on 
top of the wheel. Ralph began to pull the 
string. 

“ Now,” said the Egg, “ if you want to make 
the clay round, just press your finger on the side 
of it as it turns—^like that.” He pressed his 
finger down lightly, and after the wet shapeless 
mass had turned a few times it became perfectly 
round and smooth. “ If you want to hollow out 


102 BOB HANSON 

the centre, just press down in the middle—^like 
that.” 

“ Ouch! ” exclaimed Harold as a piece of clay 
shot off and struck him in the eye. 

“ I beg your pardon, Harold,” said the Egg. 
“ You must excuse the clay; it’s a trifle too wet.” 

Harold wiped his eye and gTinned. 

The Egg’s invention proved well worth while. 
The boys soon found that with it they could make 
much better bowls and saucers than they could 
make with their hands alone. Moreover, they 
learned that they could put attractive lips and 
grooves on their articles and that, by carefully 
manipulating the clay, they could make the pieces 
oval as well as round. 

By the end of the day they had a fine-looking 
collection of bowls, dishes, pitchers, vases and 
other odds and ends. Those that had dried in 
the sun were rough and porous, but the ones that 
had baked in the oven had a fine glaze and were 
perfectly water-tight. Many of the articles were 
very pretty and would make an attractive addi¬ 
tion to any museum. 

The Scoutmaster was enthusiastic about the 
work and was especially generous in praising the 
Egg for his “ Potter’s wheel.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


103 


Meanwhile, the carpenter had caulked the 
strained seams of the little sloop and the next day 
began work on the bowsprit. “ Day after to¬ 
morrow,” he said, “ you boys’ll be able to hoist 
sail and leave port.” 

And so it proved. The Glen Gray was as 
staunch and seaworthy as ever as she drifted 
away from the breakwater. All the clay ware was 
stowed snugly with the rest of the articles for the 
museum; the bill for repairs was paid; and the 
crew was eager for new scenes. Many villagers 
had gathered on the wharfs to wish them farewell, 
and the boys watched and waved their handker¬ 
chiefs until the roofs of the houses had vanished 
in the morning mists. 

‘‘Look alive!” shouted the Scoutmaster. 
“ Now—up with the sail! ” 

Bob, who was at the wheel, saw Tommy and 
Ted and Reddy bend their backs; up went the 
sail in little jerky impulses, and then the westerly 
breeze filled it, and the Glen Gray leaped ahead 
like a young race-horse. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE egg's plying CHIPMUNK 

Gatheeed in the cockpit, the boys roared forth 
the Troop song as the sharp prow of the sloop 
cleaved the blue water: 

« We’ve heard the call of the woods again, 

And we’re off with a laugh and a whoop; 

The day is bright and our hearts are light 
We’re the Scouts of Cedarville Troop.” 

It did seem good to be on the water again, and 
everyone looked forward eagerly to sailing all of 
that day and probably all of the next. They 
even divided themselves into three watches and 
sailed all the first night. The moon was near the 
full, and the breeze was mild and favorable for 
sailing. Toward morning they passed the Isle 
of Rocks, and by noon of the following day they 
were well beyond the place where the storm had 
turned them back. 

“ It’s a great life, Fred,” said Bob. “ I’m 
104 


105 


EAGLE SCOUT 

really glad that we did get caught in that storm, 
though I wasn’t glad at the time.” 

“ Yes,” agreed Fred; “ and do you know, Bob, 
I feel a little sorry for some of the fellows back 
home who have never felt the thrill of danger.” 

“ We’ve had plenty of thrills,” said Bob, 
laughing. “ Remember the first summer at Glen 
Gray when I was a poor Tenderfoot? And then 
last summer down Silver River? Gosh, we’ve 
certainly had some good times! ” 

“ Yes, and this summer is only a little more 
than half over! ” 

During the following week the Troop camped 
at no one place for longer than overnight. Most 
of the time on land was spent in gathering speci¬ 
mens for the museum; but the boys did rest from 
that work long enough to observe the day in 
August that marked the anniversary of the 
founding of the Troop. The ceremony was 
simple and was given on board the sloop; and 
when it was over everybody enjoyed a good 
swim. 

On one occasion they were able to perform a 
“ good turn ” of an unusual sort. It was after 
dinner while they were wandering about the shore 
of a long peninsula. “Look,” said Reddy; “a 


106 BOB HANSON 

forest fire has swept right across the lower end 
of this point.” 

The fire must have been fairly recent, for it 
had left a strip at least three hundred yards wide 
in which there was scarcely a trace of vegetation. 
To the west, however, there was a heavy growth 
of spruce and junipers that for some reason the 
fire had spared. The boys were wandering 
among them, when Bob happened to notice that a 
great many seedlings were growing among the 
parent trees. “ Mr. McGregor,” he said, “ most 
of these seedlings are sure to die here; there’s not 
room for them.” 

“ Yes, you’re right. Bob,” replied the Scout¬ 
master. 

“ Well,” continued Bob, ‘‘ we’ve got plenty of 
time; why wouldn’t it be a good plan to trans¬ 
plant some of them out in that barren open 
space? ” 

“ I should think that would be a fine thing to 
do,” replied the Scoutmaster. “ I don’t know 
who owns this land—^perhaps it belongs to the 
Government; but whoever does own it certainly 
ought to be pleased to see new trees growing 
where there were none before.” 

So the boys spent the rest of the afternoon 


EAGLE SCOUT 


107 


setting out the seedlings where they would have 
a chance to grow. In all they transplanted more 
than two hundred of them, and when at last the 
Troop started back toward the Glen Gray each 
Scout felt that he had done something worth 
while in the interest of Scout training and per¬ 
haps of Uncle Sam. 

Ralph even drew a rough sketch of the country 
and indicated on it the places where they had 
planted the seedlings. ‘‘ I don’t know as it’s the 
proper thing to display in a museum,” he said, 
“ but I’m sure that it’s to the credit of the 
Troop.” 

“ In other words, it’s a good document to place 
in the historical archives of our organization,” 
said Mr. McGregor. “ I quite agree with you, 
Ralph.” 

Farther along the coast a few days later an¬ 
other incident occurred that took an amusing 
turn. Back in the woods the Egg discovered a 
dead oak with a large hole a foot or so above 
the ground. “ See that hole? ” he said to Bob. 

“ Yes; what’s in it? ” 

nest of chipmunks,” replied the Egg 
gravely. 

“ How do you know, Eggie? ” 


108 


BOB HANSON 


“ I saw something move inside it a few mo¬ 
ments ago. I tell you what I’m going to do, 
Bob; I’m going to get a flashlight photograph 
of one of those chipmunks to-night.” 

Bob grinned. “ That’s a large order,” he 
said. 

But the Egg had plenty of confidence. Right 
after supper he took the largest camera and a 
flashlight cartridge and, urging Bob to come and 
see the fun, set out toward the tree. 

Bob followed him as soon as he had finished his 
share in cleaning the cooking pots and pans they 
had used to prepare supper. The woods were 
dark when he reached the tree, and the Egg had 
just finished adjusting the camera. 

He had placed it on a pile of stones ten feet 
from the hole and had opened the shutter. On 
the ground a little to the right of the camera and 
a few inches behind it he had spread the powder 
from his cartridge on a flat stone. Stretched 
lightly across the hole was a long piece of string, 
the other end of which was attached to one of 
three sticks that held a stone delicately poised 
above the powder; directly beneath it were the 
heads of half a dozen matches. 

“ You see,” explained the Egg, ‘‘ the chipmunk 


EAGLE SCOUT 


109 


will take his own picture. As soon as he starts to 
come out of the hole he’ll touch the string; that 
will pull one of the sticks out from under the 
stone, down it will come on the matches and— 
flash!—the powder will ignite, and we’ll have a 
swell picture of Mr. Chipmunk just coming out 
of his snug little home! ” 

Bob could not help grinning in the darkness; 
the device reminded him of some of the pictures 
he had seen in the comic papers. It’s certainly 
ingenious,” he said. 

“ Of course it is,” replied the Egg. “ Now 
let’s lie down here behind this log and await de¬ 
velopments.” 

“ Won’t the developments come after the pic¬ 
ture is taken? ” Bob asked soberly. 

The Egg was silent; he was in no mood for 
fooling. “ Be perfectly quiet,” he cautioned, 
“ and you’ll see if we don’t get a picture that’s 
fit for a museum.” 

The two boys waited, but somehow Bob could 
not take the situation seriously. Every few 
minutes he wanted to burst out laughing. It was 
just like the Egg to think of something like this. 

The woods were dark and still and silent. 
From time to time Bob could hear the voices of 


110 


BOB HANSON 

the rest of the Troop back on the beach. “ Say, 
Eggie,” he whispered, “ how long are we going 
to wait here? ’’ 

“Ssh!” cautioned the Egg. “Not so loud. 
You’re not thinking of quitting, are you? ” 

Bob laughed softly. “ No,” he replied, “ I’ll 
stay as long as you do.” 

Half an hour passed; then an hour. Still 
nothing happened. The Egg was beginning to 
get restless. “ Maybe I’d better go and see if the 
string is all right,” he said. “ Perhaps the wind 
has blown it away from the opening in the tree.” 

“ Better wait a while longer,” Bob cautioned 
him. 

“ No; I think I’ll go and look,” said the Egg. 
“ I thought I heard a scratching noise a few 
minutes ago.” 

Getting quietly to his feet, he stepped lightly 
toward the tree. Though the darkness hid him. 
Bob could hear the rustling of leaves under his 
feet from time to time. 

“ Everything all right, Eggie? ” he asked in a 
low voice. 

There was no reply. Bob rolled over on his 
side and listened. He was about to rise and 
follow his companion, when a sudden flapping 


Ill 


EAGLE SCOUT 

sound followed instantly by a brilliant flash of 
white light and a low hollow boom startled him 
almost out of his wits. ‘‘ What—what the 
dickens! ” he exclaimed, and then he realized 
what had happened; the flashlight powder had 
exploded. 

“ O Eggie,” he shouted, jumping to his feet, 
“ what happened? ” 

The Egg started to reply, but he stuttered so 
that his words came in a jumble. “ The—the 
flashlight—it went off! ” he exclaimed. 

“ Of course it did,” said Bob. ‘‘ But how did 
it happen? ” 

“ I—I reached the tree,” replied the Egg ex¬ 
citedly. “ I was feeling around—I was feeling 
around for the string, and all of a sudden some¬ 
thing shot out of the opening right into my face. 
Gosh, right in my face—I guess it was a bird or 
something. I—I—it sure scared me—almost.” 

“ I guess it did—almost,” said Bob. “ Prob¬ 
ably there was an old bat or an owl in the 
tree.” 

“ Well, whatever it was, it struck the string, 
and the flashlight went off,” said the Egg in a 
somewhat calmer voice. 

“ Well, I guess you got a picture of it,” said 


112 BOB HANSON 

Bob, laughing. “ Now we’d better go back, 

hadn’t we? ” 

“ I suppose so,” replied the Egg without much 
enthusiasm. “ Say, Bob,” he said in a pleading 
tone, “ you won’t mention anything about this to 
the fellows, will you? ” 

At that Bob almost howled with laughter. 
“ I won’t promise,” he said. “ This is too good 
to keep to myself. I’ll bet you got a wonderful 
picture! ” 

“Well, nobody’s ever going to see it!” cried 
the Egg and ran to the camera. 

But again Bob’s laughter filled the woods, for 
he had already taken out the plate holder. 
“ You’re too late, old boy,” he said. “ Just wait 
till we’ve developed it! ” 

“ Aw, say, have a heart. Bob! ” said the Egg, 
grinning sheepishly. 

But Bob liked fun too well to let this chance 
go by, and when they reached the main camp he 
told the rest of the Troop about the Egg’s ex¬ 
perience as a photographer. 

“O boy!” exclaimed Tommy. “Put that 
old photographic plate under your pillow. 
Bob.” 

“ Don’t worry. Tommy,” said Bob; “ I’m not 


EAGLE SCOUT 


113 


going to wait till morning; I’m going to develop 
it to-night! Come on and help me.” 

“ And I thought Bob was my friend,” said the 
Egg, grinning ruefully. 

In the cabin of the Glen Gray, Bob and 
Tommy hurriedly mixed developing and fixing 
solutions, though several times they almost 
dropped the plate, they laughed so much. 
“ Look—Look! ” cried Tommy as the lights and 
shadows began to appear on the negative. “ O 
Bobbie, Bobbie, what a print we’ll get from 
this!” 

They made the first print before breakfast the 
next morning, and what a shout went up from the 
deck of the sloop when the Troop beheld it! It 
really was the most remarkable photograph that 
any one of them had ever seen. There was the old 
oak tree with the hole in the side; there was the 
Egg with his head thrown back and both arms 
upraised as if in fearful astonishment; and there 
was a large owl with wings outstretched and beak 
thrust right into the Egg’s face! The photo¬ 
graph had plenty of detail in it too. You could 
see the surprised lines in the Egg’s face; you 
could see the great round eyes of the owl; and 
because of the position that the bird was in when 


114 


BOB HANSON 


the flashlight powder had exploded it looked for 
all the world as if the owl had fastened its beak 
on the end of the Egg’s nose! 

“Oh, my! Oh, my!” shouted Tommy. 
“ The Egg is lucky to have any nose left! ” 

“ That’s what he gets for snooping into a 
chipmunk’s nest,” said Reddy. 

“ That’s the first chipmunk with wings I ever 
saw,” said Bob. “ But you were right, Eggie; 
you certainly got a picture fit for any museum! ” 

“ Looks to me as if the Egg tried to kiss that 
old owl,” added Fred. 

“ Doggone it! ” exclaimed the poor Egg. 
“ How did I know there was an owl in there? I 
suppose now I’ll hear owl until the end of the 
trip. Something like that is always happenin’ 
to me.” 

“ Yes, you’re an unlucky bird,” said Tommy, 
and at the mention of “ bird ” the Egg flushed 
deeply. 

“ I think I’ll send one of these pictures to 
Russia,” remarked Ralph thoughtfully. 

“ Why? ” asked the Egg. 

“ Oh, just to cheer them up. When the Bol¬ 
sheviks see it they’ll laugh so hard they’ll get 
their whiskers all tangled up.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


115 


“Darn it!” exclaimed the Egg. “If you 
don’t leave me alone, I’ll be a Bolshevik myself 
in another hour.” 

But it was a long time before the Egg heard 
the last of his flying chipmunk. He was good- 
natured about it, however, and once when Bob 
entered the cabin for something he found him 
seated at the table, looking at one of the prints 
and chuckling to himself over it. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE BRIDGE AT MINGO SPRING 

The Scoutmaster was sitting in the cockpit, 
reading a red-covered guide-book. From time 
to time he looked up and scrutinized the long line 
of shore to the west as the Glen Gray raced along 
through the bright silver and sapphire waters. 
The sun had just pushed its curbed rim up from 
behind the far-off watery horizon. The boys 
had made an early start. 

Bob, who was at the wheel, watched the Scout¬ 
master for some time and wondered what he was 
looking for. He was about to ask him, when 
Mr. McGregor laid down his book and turned to 
Fred. “ How is our supply of water holding 
out? ” he asked. 

“ Why, I guess we have enough to last for a 
day or so,” Fred replied. “ I’ll go and look.” 

In a few moments he returned from examin¬ 
ing the butts. “There’s a little more than a 
gallon and a half,” he said. “ I didn’t realize 
that we’d let it get so low.” 

116 


EAGLE SCOUT 


117 


“Well, that’s all right. There’s rather a 
famous spring along here somewhere; I’ve been 
watching out for a landmark.” 

“ Mingo Spring? ” asked Bob. 

“ Yes,” replied the Scoutmaster. 

“ Oh, I’ve heard of it!” exclaimed several of 
the boys. 

“ They say the water is delicious,” said Bob. 

“Indeed it is!” asserted the Scoutmaster. 
“ And if we can only find it we’ll fill our butts 
with it.” 

It was not till almost an hour later, however, 
that he turned to Bob and said, “ Steer for that 
point of land there off the port bow. I think 
that’s the point this book refers to. We can’t 
be very far from the spring now.” 

Bob did as the Scoutmaster requested, and 
soon the boys saw that the point of land pro¬ 
tected a narrow cove into which a small stream 
emptied. 

“Yes, we’re on the right track,” said the 
Scoutmaster. “We ought to find the spring 
half a mile inland.” 

Bob made a neat landing alongside a small 
ledge on the northern face of the point. Then, 
leaving Ted and “ Dimples ” and Jimmy to care 


118 


BOB HANSON 


for the sloop, the boys took all the pails they 
could find and set out to look for the spring. 

“ This stream is like ice,’’ said Bob. “ Maybe 
the water comes from the spring.” 

“ I think it does,” said Mr. McGregor. “ At 
any rate, we’d better follow it to the source.” 

Over rocks and through thickets they all 
scrambled, walking in Indian file. At last they 
reached a broad oiled road with a small culvert 
through which the stream flowed. They crossed 
the road and at once came upon a narrow foot¬ 
path, which they followed through the woods. 
They had gone perhaps two hundred yards when 
the path turned abruptly to the right on the side 
of a deep wide cut and led sharply downward. 

“ There it is! ” cried the Egg, pointing to the 
side of the hill opposite. 

“ You’re right, Eggie,” said Ralph. “ There’s 
the spring; see the water bubbling out of those 
rocks? ” 

Mingo Spring, famous throughout the state 
for the clear, delicious quality of its water, 
bubbled forth on the side of a rocky hillside 
covered with birches and dogwoods. From the 
path where the Troop was standing they could 
look across the cut and see how the tiny trickle 


EAGLE SCOUT 


119 


had worn away the dirt and finally had worn a 
deep groove in the rock itself. However, by 
following the footpath, they had to walk a dis¬ 
tance of at least three hundred yards and then 
scramble up the hill in order to reach it. 

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed the Egg, panting 
with the exertion of the climb. “ After all this 
work a fellow deserves to reach a nice cold 
spring.” 

“ Other people have climbed up here long be¬ 
fore us,” said Ralph. “Lots of them too; 
see all these initials and dates cut into the 
rock.” 

“ Well, you know the spring is close to a public 
highway, and tourists are all anxious to see it and 
taste the water,” said the Scoutmaster. 

One by one the boys leaned over and drank 
until they had satisfied their thirst. 

“Great stuff!” exclaimed Reddy. “That 
sure is good water! ” 

“ Finest I ever tasted,” agreed Fred and 
Harold. 

The Scoutmaster smacked his lips and then sat 
down to look about him. “ Pretty little ravine, 
this,” he remarked. 

“Do you know,” said Reddy thoughtfully. 


120 


BOB HANSON 


“ it would be a slick idea if somebody should 
build a rustic bridge across this cut sometime.” 

“ Somebody? ” repeated Fred, grinning. 

“ Well—we, if you like,” replied Reddy. 
“Why couldn’t we do it? There’s plenty of 
wood, and besides we’d be helping a lot of people! 
Why couldn’t we do it? ” 

“ I don’t know why we couldn’t,” Bob replied 
promptly. “ In fact, I’m quite sure that we 
could, and I cast my vote in favor of it.” 

“ And I cast mine,” said the Scoutmaster. 

That was enough for the others, and plans 
were soon under way. But before the boys were 
able actually to begin the work one patrol—the 
Red Foxes—had to return to the sloop to fetch 
axes and whatever other tools they thought they 
should need. The Red Foxes carried water with 
them to the sloop and on their return brought 
back the empty buckets. 

While they were gone Reddy borrowed a ball 
of twine from Harold and measured the distance 
straight across the cut; it was within a few inches 
of twenty-one feet. “ That’s not bad,” he said; 
“ I thought it was wider. Well, then, first of all 
we’ll need two trees twenty-seven feet long.” 

“ And there they are,” said Reddy, pointing 


EAGLE SCOUT 


121 


to an unusually thick clump of pines. “ See 
those two standing close together? It won’t hurt 
to thin that timber out a little.” 

By the time the Red Foxes returned, Reddy 
and Ralph and Bob had sketched a rough plan 
of the bridge on a piece of paper from Ralph’s 
note-book. They figured precisely how many 
long pieces they would need for the framework: 
there would have to be the two spans, of course, 
and there ought to be four slanting braces and 
two vertical braces. “ If the bridge isn’t steady 
enough the way we’ve planned it,” said Reddy, 
“ we can add an extra brace wherever we think 
we need one.” 

Soon the merry ring of sharp axes mingled 
with the musical notes of the water falling on the 
rocks. The Scoutmaster lent a willing hand to 
the heavy work and gave a word of advice when¬ 
ever anyone asked for it. The hardest part came 
right at the start—it was to get the spans in 
place. But after much struggling and grunting 
and tugging they succeeded in spanning the 
ravine with the two pine trees, which the Beavers 
had trimmed of all branches. Then the Red 
Foxes began to cut small pieces for the floor¬ 
ing. 


122 


BOB HANSON. 


The Beavers and the Wildcats worked to¬ 
gether on the braces. They placed one with its 
heavy base against a pile of rocks at the foot of 
the hill that the spring was on and nailed the 
other end beneath the middle of one of the spans. 
Then they placed another so that it slanted from 
the foot of the hill opposite and met the top of 
the first brace beneath the span. When they 
had done that much they braced the other span 
in the same manner. 

“ Now,” said Reddy, “ we need two long 
horizontal pieces to hold the braces; we ought to 
put them a foot or two from the ground.” 

“Yes, and we ought to have too small braces 
a foot or more above the ground at the ends of the 
slanting braces,” Bob advised. 

“ All right, let’s go! ” cried the Egg. 

But long before they had nailed the horizontal 
braces in place Fred and his Red Foxes were at 
work nailing the flooring across the two spaces. 
If the Beavers and the Wildcats had had the 
hardest task, the Red Foxes had the most peril¬ 
ous ; it was risky business straddling the two pine 
logs above the ravine. But everyone was care¬ 
ful, and, though Fred himself barely escaped a 
bad fall, nobody was hurt. 


EAGLE SCOUT 123 

“ It’s beginning to look like a bridge now,” 
said Ralph. 

“ The bridge of sighs,” remarked the Egg, 
straining and panting as he helped to lift one of 
the horizontal braces into place. 

“ The bridge of grunts would be a better 
name,” said Tommy. “ Just look at the Egg; I 
guess he thinks the logs will grow suddenly lighter 
if he grunts at them as he lifts.” 

The boys had a late lunch that day, and they 
ate it in a hurry, for they were eager to finish the 
bridge before dark. At three o’clock when they 
returned to the ravine they renewed the work 
with intense enthusiasm, and at the end of an hour 
the rough structure was complete, and all the 
flooring was laid. Then the Beavers made a 
rustic railing for both sides of the footway, and 
at last when they had fastened it in place every¬ 
one gave a loud cheer. They had finished long 
before they had expected. 

The bridge was like many another rustic 
bridge, and it fitted in nicely with the scenery. 
Indeed any other kind of bridge would have 
looked out of place in the pretty ravine. 

In a conspicuous place on one of the rough logs, 
Ralph carved the name of the Troop and the 


124 


BOB HANSON 


date. Then everybody went down into the 
ravine and began to pile the heaviest stones they 
could find against the braces. 

“ You see,” said Reddy, who had suggested 
that they do so, “ in the spring I suppose there 
will be a stream running through this valley, and 
I’d certainly hate to have it carry away those 
braces.” 

“ Not much fear of that now,” responded the 
Scoutmaster. “ The current would have to be 
mighty strong to push these rocks aside.” 

There was just enough daylight left to take 
several pictures of the bridge, which everybody 
agreed would look well in a large frame back in 
the museum. “ They’ll stand as fine examples 
of what a bunch of Scouts can do! ” the Egg 
declared enthusiastically. 

“ I know of a much more interesting picture, 
though,” said Bob, winking at Tommy. 

At Bob’s allusion to the episode of the “ flying 
chipmunk,” the Egg looked sheepish. “ I’m 
going to get right out of the Beaver Patrol,” 
he said, “ unless you forget all about that 
night.” 

“ What will you do then? ” inquired Bob, still 
grinning. 


125 


EAGLE SCOUT 

“ I don’t know,” replied the Egg. “ I’ll be a 
lone Scout maybe and scour-” 

“ Scour the pots and pans,” interrupted 
Tommy. 

“ Scour the country,” continued the Egg 
gravely. “ Or maybe I’ll form a patrol of my 
own- 

“And call it the Flying Chipmunks!” ex¬ 
claimed Bob. “ Gee, Eggie, you could have a 
pennant made with your own picture on it and a 
great big owl holding on to the end of your nose. 
Now, I think that would be quite an idea.” 

“Aw, cut it out. Bob,” said the Egg. “I 
didn’t think of resigning from the Beavers; 
honest I didn’t.” 

“ You’d better not,” said Bob, throwing his 
arm round his friend’s shoulders. “ We think 
a lot of you, Eggie, even if we do tease you a 
little now and then.” 

With many glances back at the bridge, and 
with the buckets full of sparkling water, the boys 
started along the path toward the sloop. Every¬ 
one was tired and hungry, and so they were 
agreebly surprised to find that the others who had 
remained behind had prepared a big pot of bean 
soup for supper. 




126 


BOB HANSON 


“ We thought you’d be hungry,” said 
“ Nellie.” 

‘‘ It’s mighty thoughtful of you fellows to do 
this,” said Mr. McGregor. “ That soup cer¬ 
tainly smells good! ” 

And it tasted quite as good as it smelled. 
After supper everybody was content to lie 
around on the beach and talk. It had been a 
busy day; they had not only filled their water 
butts with clear delicious water from the famous 
Mingo, but had built a bridge that would enable 
the world in general to reach the spring more 
easily and slake its thirst. 


CHAPTER XIII 


IN THE OLD CISTERN 

One unusually hot afternoon the Glen Gray 
anchored just off a long sloping white beach, and 
everybody began to prepare for a refreshing 
swim. 

The water looks good to me,” said Fred. 

“Same here,” said Bob. “Look! There 
goes the Egg! ” 

The Egg had made a long run down the beach 
and landed with a loud smack on an incoming 
wave. Up splashed the water all round his sleek 
body, and the sunlight glinted on the fine drops 
and turned them into pearls. “ It’s g-g-great! ” 
he cried as his head bobbed up. “ Come on in, 
you fellows! ” 

“Line up, everybody!” shouted Tommy. 
“ All in together and we’ll just about sink that 
fellow out there.” 

The Troop formed a long line half-way up the 
127 


128 


BOB HANSON 


beach and, as Tommy gave the word, dashed 
forward. There was a great splash and a long 
band of spray as when a heavy wave breaks 
against a reef, and for a moment all one could 
see of the boys were flying arms and legs. 

“ Ugh,” said the Egg, “ I swallowed a quart 
of water. See? ” and he turned on his back and 
spouted like a whale. 

For almost an hour the boys enjoyed them¬ 
selves in the water, swimming out to the sloop, 
climbing up and diving from the forward deck, 
playing jokes on one another, swimming under 
water, and doing various other things. And at 
last, one by one, they crawled out on the beach 
to dry in the warm sunshine. It was the kind of 
hot sultry afternoon that makes you want to lie 
around and do nothing, and most of the boys 
were content to do just that. 

Bob, however, was restless. For a while he 
walked up and down the beach, looking for new 
kinds of shells. Then he sat down and dug a 
trench to hold back the water; but when he 
finished it he found himself trying to think of 
something else to do. “ Hey, Fred, let’s take a 
walk back in the woods,” he suggested. 

“ Huh? M-m-m,” replied Fred, rolling over 


EAGLE SCOUT 


129 


sleepily in the comfortable hollow he had dug for 
himself in the sand. 

“ Hey, Reddy, how about you? ” said Bob. 

“ Huh? M-m-m,” replied Reddy. 

Bob grinned. “ Everybody’s sleepy except 
me,” he thought. “ Even the old Egg has his 
mouth open over there, catching flies.” 

He glanced at the others; all were asleep or at 
least looked as if they were. “ Who wants to go 
for a walk? ” he asked. 

“ Pretty warm. Bob,” replied Mr. McGregor 
lazily. 

“ Well, Joe Miller,” said Bob to himself, 

something always happens when I feel restless 
like this. But I just can’t lie down and sleep.” 

Without disturbing any of the others, he put 
on his clothes, which were lying on the beach, and 
soon was rambling leisurely among the trees that 
fringed the shore. 

The air in the woods was still and hot and 
moist; tiny swarms of gnats and flies circled 
continuously here and there in the bright open 
spaces overhead; the leaves hung motionless 
beneath the warm blue of the sky. But in spite 
of the sultry heat. Bob did the thing he liked to 
do best when he was alone in the woods: he 


130 


BOB HANSON 


wandered aimlessly from point to point, now 
climbing a hillock to look about him, now stop¬ 
ping to examine an interesting flower, now turn¬ 
ing abruptly to the right or the left in order to 
gaze off at an interesting part of the landscape. 

He had been gone perhaps three-quarters of 
an hour when he reached what had once been an 
old road. Where it led to he had no idea; never¬ 
theless, he struck into it and followed it for some¬ 
thing less than a mile. He was on the point of 
turning back when he spied a house ahead of him 
in a small clearing. “ Seems an out-of-the-way 
place for a house,’" he thought. “ Wonder who 
lives in it? ” 

The house proved to be quite empty, and ap¬ 
parently nobody had lived in it for a long time. 
Part of the roof had fallen in; the windows were 
all broken; and all that remained of the chimney, 
which had projected through the shingles of the 
roof, was a few moss-covered bricks. Bob poked 
his head in at the doorway and saw that the floor 
was covered with heaps of plaster and pieces of 
wood that had fallen from the floor above. 
Curiously he entered and picked his way over the 
debris, wondering who had built the house, who 
had lived in it» and what had become of the 


EAGLE SCOUT 


131 


people. Perhaps at one time the road through 
the woods had been a frequented highway be¬ 
tween two villages; perhaps the house had been 
the dwelling of someone who had made the clear¬ 
ing for the purpose of raising crops. 

He was busy with those thoughts when, enter¬ 
ing the kitchen, he observed that one side of the 
wall had partly fallen away, disclosing the 
chimney, which led up from what once must have 
been a fine big open fireplace. “ Gee whiz! ” he 
exclaimed. “ I believe that’s an old chimney¬ 
sweep’s nest up there. Yes, that’s just what it 
is!” 

He picked up a handful of loose plaster from 
the floor and began tossing pieces up at the nest. 
The third piece struck it, and it fell down into the 
room almost at his feet. It was made entirely 
of twigs, and altogether it was an excellent speci¬ 
men to add to the collection. As he bent over to 
pick it up he spied another nest higher in the old 
chimney. Determined to have that one also, he 
began again to toss pieces of plaster up the 
chimney. 

But he could not seem to hit it. So finally he 
stopped throwing and glanced round the room 
for something to poke it down with. Near the 


132 


BOB HANSON 


fireplace was an old iron pump lying upon the 
floor; beside it lay a long stick, but it was not 
quite long enough. Then he spied part of an 
old step-ladder on the other side of the room. 

Just the thing! ” he thought. 

The floor creaked and trembled as he crossed 
to get it, but he stepped carefully and in a few 
moments had the ladder resting against the wall. 
Then, stick in hand, he mounted it. He had 
reached the step next to the top and was just 
straightening up, when there was a crack, and the 
next instant he felt the step give way beneath 
him. He reached out blindly. One hand 
scraped against the wall; the other clutched the 
air. Then his heels struck the floor with a jolt 
that shook the room. To his horror the old 
boards of the floor yielded beneath him, and al¬ 
most before he knew what had happened daylight 
seemed suddenly to have gone out. He had 
broken through the rotten floor! 

The next thing that he was aware of was a 
hollow splash and a feeling of intense coldness. 
Then a great mass of water seemed to strike him 
in the face. Down, down he went till one foot 
touched something firm. He kicked with all his 
strength, and a moment later his head shot above 


EAGLE SCOUT 


133 


the water. He caught a quick breath and 
opened his eyes. Above him was an irregular 
circle of dim light; everywhere else that he 
looked he saw only intense darkness. There was 
no escaping the conclusion that flashed into his 
mind; he had fallen into an old cistern. 

Bob was anything but a coward, but the full 
realization of the predicament that he was in 
made his lips quiver. The water was almost as 
cold as ice. Except for a rough stone that he 
was clinging to with the tips of his fingers, the 
sides of the cistern seemed to be smooth and per¬ 
pendicular. A careful examination in the dark¬ 
ness soon proved that such was the case. The 
ragged boards above him, which he could see a 
little better now that his eyes were becoming ac¬ 
customed to the darkness, were perhaps four feet 
from the top of his head. 

At first he tried desperately to climb out by 
bracing his feet on one side and his hands on the 
side opposite; but the cistern was a little too wide 
for that. After he had skinned the ends of his 
fingers and almost exhausted his strength with 
trying, he gave it up and turned his thoughts to 
other plans. But none of them seemed feasible. 

More to keep up his courage than for any 


134 


BOB HANSON 


other purpose he began to talk to himself aloud. 
“ Now—J-Joe M-Miller/’ he said, his teeth chat¬ 
tering with cold, “ what n-next? ” 

But he could think of no answer to the ques¬ 
tion. “ What n-next? ” he repeated, and the 
words sounded hollow and unreal in the confined 
space. The dim circle of light seemed a little 
less distinct overhead, and he realized that the 
afternoon was waning. In his heart he knew 
that he could not hold his head above water all 
night; already his feet and legs felt numb, and 
the fingers of both hands were beginning to ache. 
In vain he listened for the sound of voices. He 
pictured his comrades lying at their ease on the 
beach; perhaps by now some of them were dress¬ 
ing. And here he was at least two miles from 
the shore, trapped in a cistern beneath the floor 
of an old tumbledown house that none of them 
knew existed. Once or twice he shouted, but 
only the echoes answered him. 

He began to search his pockets for his flash¬ 
light and then suddenly remembered that he had 
left it in the cockpit of the sloop. His fingers 
closed round a curiously marked piece of feld¬ 
spar that he had picked up in the woods; he drew 
it forth and was about to drop it into the water 


135 


EAGLE SCOUT 

when he thought of a possible way of using it to 
get himself out of his trap. If he could attach 
it to one end of his belt and toss it up through 
the hole- 

In a moment he was struggling to loosen the 
belt. But when he finally succeeded in doing so 
he found that it was too short; moreover, since 
the stone was almost perfectly round it would 
probably slip out of the belt the first time he 
tossed it. In spite of himself black despair 
seemed to settle over him. With an effort he 
forced his mouth into a grin. A Scout is cheer¬ 
ful—that was a good motto, but he was in any¬ 
thing but a cheerful situation. He closed his 
teeth with a snap. A Scout is brave—well, there 
was a motto he could live up to. If he had to 
die in the old cistern he’d die fighting! 

With the thought he searched his pockets 
again. In the midst of it he gave a short quick 
exclamation. The next moment he was strug¬ 
gling to get his woolen shirt off; it was no easy 
task, but he was finally successful. Then with 
trembling fingers he ripped it down the middle 
and knotted the two pieces together. As he did 
so he thought of stories he had read of prisoners 
escaping by means of blankets knotted together. 



136 


BOB HANSON 


He tied the stone securely in the sleeve of one of 
the halves of the shirt and tied the belt to the 
other. Now he had a leather-and-wool “ rope ” 
almost six feet long. 

Taking careful aim and holding tight to the 
end of the belt, he threw the stone upward; it 
went clearly through the opening, fell back, 
struck a board and dropped into the water. 
Again he threw it, and again it fell back. He 
had tried almost a dozen times before the stone at 
last lodged in a crevice of the broken floor. He 
pulled gently on the belt; the stone held firmly. 
He pulled a little harder, and his heart began to 
beat rapidly with exultation. He put all his 
M^eight on the belt and began to climb, bracing 
his feet against the wall as he did so. He was 
out of the water almost to his waist when the belt 
went slack in his hands, and he fell backward. 
He heard the stone splash in the water close to his 
head. 

For a few moments he clung to the side of the 
cistern, panting. It was so dark now that he 
could not see the opening above him at all. But 
his exertions had helped to warm his body, and 
after he had rested for a while he began again to 
toss the stone. 



He Threw His Weight on It 





'mm 


IP 


, I" 


4- ** 


'*v‘ ' ' ■- »*. 

r. ...n ■ • V ‘ 


f I V; ^ * * '•* ** -# J ^ 

•* t . *; - .*Lfir". 

« 


^•» 




*? 


‘ I' - 


\ ■ 




•'*" ** 


' i. ' ** L 

•V ♦ . < 



' - ' ■ '■■- «x-.-■*>-■ ^ 


* V /■ 



ft ^ , I - 

2 •*^ » * .-I 






•%*■ Vi 

< ‘ 



* \ 


r"/ \ 












* J 




H“n** 


«i 


1» 





4 •" 


41 


I , 


.. , 

* Cm/ .Ta . > , 

. . »•'' ■ . 


A A 






r * 


• 1 


, '4 







■41 


rr- 



.1. 


#•• !• ‘ 





•'n' 


- i 

,,, i.»5 


•> * 


' \* 


’ ^ •*•- t V ^ ^f 

•' ' ** 


jt p 


.i^ 


.i-dM 


. \ 


i 





H. * 




ii 



\ 


^ 4 



J^-/' 


•J- 






• 1. ! ' -'’■^r ? ■ -'*<•>'4' 

• 4 • T - ' "tMi'' y J.. 4 


• .^' ■ !;£■ - VV *" /\ ‘ v: 

^ 1%,-^ ^ , • ^ , .e:, II - 


V ■:. 


. ■>*L 



3f 'll 


• '/I 


.t. A-l 


<1 ' " 




< t 


.» 


i- N'A- 

- > ■ 
'li-2 

Ift d'.''' ■' • - *1- 

W':- 



t ;4V**‘ 


A >1- 


* -• 


1 ^ 


‘Af *' 


♦iiv 










*» 


^ r- 

vl 


^.-3f;A:-^-v,, , j rw ,v fty f ’' 

t ‘‘ jf'■«• . . ’ - * ^^?8L '^kVi*'i- 


■I't'fi ;V^';,'■ :'«f" ■■.“■'Is 








EAGLE SCOUT 


137 


Many a boy in similar circumstances would 
have given up in the face of such overwhelming 
odds; but Bob had been in desperate situations 
before. He knew that this was his only chance 
of getting out of the cistern alive, and he had the 
will to fight while an ounce of strength remained 
in his tired body. His arms and shoulders 
pained him, and his legs seemed devoid of feel¬ 
ing; yet he continued to toss the stone upward, 
pull it back to him when it struck the water, and 
then toss again. 

He was near the end of his strength when he 
paused to swing the stone carefully; then he 
threw it. He heard it strike something and then 
felt the belt pull taut against his wrist. He 
waited for the stone to fall back. It did not fall. 
He pulled at the belt, and to his joy it did not 
yield an inch. He threw his weight on it, jerked 
it once or twice in order to test it and then with 
his heart almost in his mouth began to climb. 

Bob did not know what he should do if the 
stone should come loose as it had done before. 
He tried to think of nothing except how to get 
up the “ rope ” in the surest and quickest way. 
Never had he been so much exhausted in his life; 
yet he gripped the cold wet leather with the 


138 


BOB HANSON 


strength that comes with desperation. Now his 
waist, now his knees were out of water. Now his 
hands were gripping the soggy flannel of the 
shirt. 

He was past the knot, and his hands were on 
the upper half of the shirt, when he felt it slip, 
and a handful of plaster rained down on his head. 
For an instant his heart seemed to stop beating; 
then as the cloth slipped again, it began to beat 
wildly. He reached up, gripped and pulled. 
Again—^grip and pull! Then his right hand 
struck sharply against hard wood, and he hooked 
his fingers over it. The next instant he had 
grasped it with the other hand. 

Outside a whippoorwill sounded its sweet 
mournful note. A tree-toad croaked for rain. 
In a tree close to the old house a bird in the lower 
branches twittered as if in its sleep, and another 
somewhere above it answered. Bob heard all 
those sounds and a good many others as he 
hung above the deep yawning black cistern and 
waited for some of his strength to return. At 
last he chinned himself and got one armpit over 
the beam. A steady stream of plaster rained 
down into the cistern. A few moments later he 
was lying at full length on the rotten, sagging 


EAGLE SCOUT 139 

floor. In the tree close to the old house both 
birds were silent. 

How long Bob lay there panting he did not 
know, but at last he crawled to the door, walked 
slowly out into the star-drenched night and sat 
down on a stump. He rubbed his legs vigor¬ 
ously to start the blood circulating. When he 
looked up, a light was coming toward him down 
the road. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE CELEBRATION AT SANDY POINT 

The light in the road drew nearer and nearer. 
‘‘ O Bob! Where ar-r-re you? ” 

With a shout Bob sprang to his feet. “ Right 
here—down the road! ” he replied. 

A few minutes later he was in the midst of his 
comrades. “ What happened, Bob? ” asked the 
Scoutmaster. “ You’re all wet. Where’s your 
shirt? ” 

In the fewest words possible Bob narrated 
what had occurred. “ And,” he concluded, 
“ that’s why I’m wet and without a shirt.” 

“ You’ve been through a severe ordeal,” said 
the Scoutmaster, taking off his jacket and throw¬ 
ing it round Bob’s shoulders. “ If you can stand 
it, I think the best thing to do now is to walk back 
to the beach as quickly as possible.” 

“ I can do it all right,” Bob replied, and Fred 
and Tommy at once placed themselves on either 
side of him. 

In spite of Ralph’s warning that it was best to 
keep out of old tumbledown houses, Reddy and 
140 


141 


EAGLE SCOUT 

Ihe Egg crawled over the debris on the floor and 
found the chimney swallow’s nest that Bob had 
knocked down. “ I’m glad it was Bob and no 
one else that fell into that cistern,” remarked the 
Egg as he and Reddy caught up with the others, 
“ He’s grit clean through! ” 

“ He certainly is,” replied Reddy. I hope 
he doesn’t take cold or anything. Lucky we 
have some extra shirts with us.” 

As a matter of fact. Bob did have a cold in his 
head the next morning and felt generally out of 
sorts. So all of that day he lay out in the sun¬ 
shine on the forward deck of the sloop, while 
most of the others were active in hunting new 
specimens. That night he rolled up in his 
blankets right after supper and awoke the next 
morning feeling like his old self. 

Near the middle of the morning Alec sang out: 
‘‘ Lighthouse ahead! ” 

“ That’s the Ragged Reef light,” said Mr. Mc¬ 
Gregor, “ and the town you see there just behind 
the long sand bar is Sandy Point.” 

“ We need flour and sugar,” Tommy reminded 
him. 

“ Yes, we do; and gasoline also. This will be 
a good place to get them.” 


142 


BOB HANSON 


As the Glen Gray rounded the bar the light¬ 
house keeper waved his hat. “ You’re just in 
time! ” he shouted. 

The boys waved in answer. “ Just in time for 
what, I wonder? ” said the Egg. 

They tied up at the wharf, and the Scout¬ 
master told the Beavers to get ready to accom¬ 
pany him ashore. Five minutes later the boys 
were ready; they wore their jackets, their broad 
felt hats, and their scarfs knotted jauntily round 
their necks. 

Greatly to their astonishment, they found that 
the main business street of Sandy Point was 
bedecked with flags and bunting and streamers; 
moreover, most of the people were dressed in 
their best and were strolling along as if the day 
were a holiday. 

“ Wonder what’s going on? ” asked the Egg, 
remembering the words of the lighthouse keeper. 

They soon found out when they entered one of 
the stores. ‘‘ To-day’s the one hundredth anni¬ 
versary of the founding of Sandy Point,” the 
storekeeper told them. ‘‘ You’d better stay and 
help us eat ice-cream over at the picnic grounds 
this afternoon. There’s to be quite a celebra¬ 
tion.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


143 


At that moment two men entered tKe store 
and, while Bob and the other Beavers were mak¬ 
ing their purchases, engaged Mr. McGregor in 
conversation. “ Yes, yes,” Bob heard him say 
once, “ I think the boys would be glad to do it.” 

On the way back to the wharf the Scoutmaster 
was very thoughtful, and, from the way his eyes 
twinkled at times. Bob knew that he had some¬ 
thing pleasant to tell, 

“ What kind of a town is it? ” asked Fred as 
the Beavers came aboard. 

“ Looked like a darn good town to me,” replied 
the Egg. 

‘‘ I’ll tell you something interesting about it if 
you’ll all gather here in the cockpit,” the Scout¬ 
master announced in a loud voice. And a few 
moments later when the Troop had gathered he 
said, “ The meeting will now come to order.” 

Ralph disappeared into the cabin and returned 
at once with his pencil and his note-book. 

“ To-day,” began the Scoutmaster, ‘‘ is the one 
hundredth anniversary of the founding of the 
town of Sandy Point, and the people are cele¬ 
brating it. I was talking with two prominent 
citizens this morning. One was Mayor Good¬ 
win; he invited us all to attend the picnic that is 


144 


BOB HANSON 


to take place over on the point this afternoon. I 
said I thought you’d all be glad to do so.” 

“ I guess we don’t need to vote on that! ” ex¬ 
claimed Ted. 

“ Well,” continued the Scoutmaster, “ then 
Mr. Castleton, the other man, told me that he is 
trying hard to organize a troop of Scouts, and he 
suggested that we not only attend the picnic, but 
give the people a demonstration of some of the 
things Boy Scouts can do. He said that it would 
help him in his work of forming a troop of his 
own. The mayor was at once enthusiastic about 
it. So I said I thought you’d all be glad to do 
that also. What do you think of the idea? ” 

“ It’s great! ” cried a dozen voices. 

“ Let’s begin practicing at once! ” suggested 
Ralph. 

‘ “ Yes,” said Bob. “ First we ought to decide 
on a programme and then practice it like the 
dickens. We have an hour and a half before 
Inoon.” 

“ We don’t need to bother about lunch,” said 
the Egg; and when everybody looked at him with 
some astonishment he added, “You see, there’ll 
be plenty to eat at the picnic.” 

Without further delay the three patrol leaders 


EAGLE SCOUT 


145 


and the Scoutmaster set to work to outline a 
schedule of events; and when they had done that 
much the whole Troop went to work as if their 
lives depended on learning everything by heart. 
Really, however, it was only a matter of refresh¬ 
ing their memories on some of the things that 
they had done many times back at Cedarville. 
Some of the townsfolk came down and watched 
with unfeigned interest; but most of the people 
apparently were busy with other things. 

At half-past twelve the Troop went aboard the 
sloop and had a cold lunch. The Scoutmaster 
said that he was satisfied with the practice. At 
half-past one they formed on the wharf in column 
of twos. Mr. McGregor was at the head; behind 
him were Bob and his Beavers; then came Fred 
and his Red Foxes; and then Reddy and his 
Wildcats. 

The Troop made a striking picture as it 
marched up toward the town. Every boy wore 
his full equipment—^khaki uniform with short 
pants and khaki stockings, haversack, cooking 
kit, canteen, axe, knife, coil of rope, lanyard, and 
blue neckerchief beneath the jacket. The right 
sleeve of Bob’s jacket was resplendent with merit 
badges and service stripes; the left sleeve shone 


146 


BOB HANSON 


with his insignia of rank; and above his left 
pocket was a row of medals, conspicuous among 
which was his Eagle Scout medal. Fred, who 
had finally passed the life-saving test late in the 
spring, also wore the Eagle Scout medal. Indeed 
there was scarcely a boy in line who did not have 
half a dozen merit badges and a medal of some 
sort. 

There was cheering when they marched 
through the town, but it seemed nothing com¬ 
pared with the cheering that greeted them when 
they reached the picnic ground, where most of the 
people were gathered. Straight across the base¬ 
ball diamond they marched, heads up and minds 
alert for any command that their leader might 
give. Then one of the town officials hurried out 
and spoke to the Scoutmaster, who at once swung 
the column sharply to the right and halted it in 
the shade of a fringe of maples. There the 
boys made themselves comfortable in the 
grass. 

Behind them in the woods women and girls in 
bright dresses were setting long wooden tables 
covered with white cloths and red-white-and-blue 
paper napkins. Off to the right a band struck 
into a medley of patriotic airs. Everybody 


EAGLE SCOUT 1471 

seemed happy; and overhead the sun seemed to 
look down with warm-hearted approval. 

“O boy!” said the Egg, “This is slick! 
Look at the cans of ice-cream on that wagon, will 
you!” 

“ You’re right,” said Harold. “ This is my 
idea of a real picnic. We’re in luck! ” 

“ Look at the silk hat on the mayor! ” 
whispered the Egg a moment later. “ Gosh, he 
looks like-” 

“ Be careful, Eggie,” cautioned Ralph. 

Fifteen minutes later the picnic began in ear¬ 
nest. There was dancing on the green. There 
were potato races, sack races, wheelbarrow races 
and relay races. There were races for girls, 
races for boys, races for fat men, races for thin 
men. There were weight-lifting contests, sing¬ 
ing contests, and contests of every description. 
And all the while the band made the woods ring 
with lively music. Then Mayor Goodwin 
mounted a stump, took off his high silk hat and 
addressed his fellow townsmen. The speech was 
interrupted frequently with applause; but when 
he extended his arm toward the Scouts gathered 
in the shade of the maples the people were silent 
with expectation. 



148 


BOB HANSON 


“ It gives me great pleasure,” he said, ‘‘ to an¬ 
nounce that we have with us here on this happy 
occasion a troop of Boy Scouts who, during the 
past three or four years, have made an enviable 
name for themselves. They have generously 
agreed to show us some of the things that Scout- 
craft teaches, and it is my earnest hope that be¬ 
fore the end of another year the town of Sandy 
Point will have a troop of its own in this great 
world-wide movement. Ladies and gentlemen, 
Cedarville Troop No. l!” 

There was a burst of hearty applause, and 
when it subsided, the Troop was on its feet. 

“Troop atten-shun!” cried the Scoutmaster. 
“ Column left—march! ” 

The boys stepped out in time with the music. 
Another command from their leader and they 
were marching in squad formation. At the far 
end of the field they countermarched. Then 
“ Left front into line—^march! ” cried the Scout¬ 
master, and a few moments later they came down 
the field in platoon front, and so straight was the 
long line that you might have thought the boys 
had trained at West Point. 

Another burst of applause, and before it had 
subsided, the line changed to a column again. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


149 


Then followed a succession of countermarches 
that held the picnickers almost spellbound. 
Another command and the Troop swung down 
the field in the form of a large letter C that won 
the hearts of every man, woman and child pres¬ 
ent. 

Then to the tune of The Stars and Stripes 
Forever ” the boys changed to column formation 
and marched to their places beneath the maples. 

Immediately every boy took off his jacket, and 
the bright blue scarfs flashed in the yellow sun¬ 
light. Bob led his Beavers forth and to the 
astonishment of all the small boys lit a fire by 
means of the drill bow, using cedar bark and dry 
grass for tinder. 

“ Gee! ” exclaimed one lad. “ They lit it with¬ 
out matches! ” 

The Beavers had scarcely put out the fire when 
Fred led his Red Foxes forth, and the people 
were shown the intricacies of knot-tying. 
Figure eights, sheet bends, bowlines, sheep 
shanks, clove hitches, half hitches and timber 
hitches followed one another in rapid succession. 
Then out came Reddy and his Wildcats and 
showed how to apply first aid treatment in case 
of injury. 


150 


BOB HANSON 


Next the Scoutmaster picked up a pair of the 
Troop signal flags and crossed the field to where 
the mayor and Mr. Castleton and a large group 
of people were standing. “ What shall the boys 
do next? ’’ he asked, smiling. 

“ Anything at all,” replied the mayor. 

“Have them build a house!” exclaimed one 
spectator, laughing. “ By George, I think they 
could do it! ” 

“ They might build a lean-to shelter,” sug¬ 
gested Mr. Castleton. 

“ All right,” said the Scoutmaster, addressing 
the enthusiastic spectator. “ I’ll have a house 
for you in a few minutes.” 

He raised the flags and signaled “ Attention.” 
On the other side of the field Ralph seized his 
note-book and signaled back that he was ready. 
The Scoutmaster’s red and white flags flashed in 
the sunlight. The people watched him curiously. 
When he finally lowered the flags there was a 
quick movement among the three patrols. Then 
the people saw them hurry into the woods. A 
few minutes later Bob’s patrol reappeared, carry¬ 
ing bundles of long sticks; they ran to the centre 
of the field and began to build the framework of 
the lean-to with them. They had no more than 


EAGLE SCOUT 


151 


finished it when the two other patrols crossed the 
field, bearing armfuls of fir branches. A short 
while later a comfortable, fragrant lean-to stood 
in the field where none had been before, and the 
cheers and hand-clapping of the people mingled 
with the sound of the band. 

“ It took ’em just nine minutes by my watch,” 
said Mr. Castleton. “ I’ll say you have a sure- 
enough live troop, Mr. McGregor! ” 

The Scouts did one more thing before the pro¬ 
gramme was ended; they ran a flag-relay race. 
And up to the last second it was easily the most 
exciting event of the whole afternoon. Bob, the 
anchor man for his patrol, took the flag from 
Ralph. In front of him Fred was off like the 
wind, and in front of Fred, Reddy was running 
for all he was worth. Bob ran as he had never 
run before in his life. He came up even with 
Fred and passed him in three strides. He over¬ 
took Reddy. The two ran neck and neck for a 
dozen yards. Then Bob spurted and amid a 
deafening roar crossed the line, a winner by a few 
inches. 

That ended the Scouts’ programme—except 
that the mayor and Mr. Castleton forced the 
Scoutmaster to make a speech, which he did 


152 


BOB HANSON 


rather badly. Blushing like a schoolboy, he said 
that his Troop was a fine one, not through any 
efforts of his own, but entirely through the efforts 
of the boys themselves. 

“Now for the eats!” whispered the Egg. 
“ They’re waiting for us.” 

“ We’ll have to wait till the last table, Eggie,” 
replied Tommy. “ Try and control yourself! ” 

But the Egg was right. The good people of 
the town had set aside one long table specially for 
the Scouts; and now a pretty girl all in pink came 
and led them to it. 

“ The Egg doesn’t need to be led,” said 
Tommy; “ he needs to be held back! ” 

It was a wonderful picnic dinner that the boys 
sat down to—chicken, duck, home-cured ham, 
roast lamb, potatoes, white and sweet, squash, 
lima beans, turnips, creamed onions, a dozen 
kinds of cake, half a dozen kinds of pie, ice-cream 
and several kinds of pudding — and daintily 
dressed girls and motherly women all insisting 
that they must surely “ eat some of this.” Off 
in the woods the band was playing “ The Golden 
Harvest Moon.” 

The Egg called it the “ perfect end of a day ”; 
but really it was not the end. Soon after the 


EAGLE SCOUT 


153 


sun went down, Chinese lanterns were lit and 
hung on the trees, and then there was more danc¬ 
ing. Though none of the boys danced they en¬ 
joyed looking on and listening to the music. 
And when finally they assembled and hiked back 
to the Glen Gray all agreed that not only the end 
of the day, but the whole day itself had been per¬ 
fect. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE WHITE LAUNCH 

The next morning the whole Troop slept an 
hour later than usual. Everybody talked of 
nothing except the picnic while breakfast was 
preparing; and it was with a great deal of regret 
that they decided to continue on their way that 
morning. But as several of the boys pointed 
out, they were on a cruise the purpose of which 
was to collect specimens for the museum back 
home, and they ought not to waste too much 
time merely in amusing themselves. 

During the middle part of the morning, when 
they were busy doing odd tasks aboard the sloop, 
Mr. Castleton and three boys came down to the 
wharf, carrying two large wicker hampers. 

“ You’re going to set sail? ” he asked. 

“ Yes, we’ve got to be on our way,” replied 
the Scoutmaster. 

“ Well, here’s some more cargo for you.” And 
Mr. Castleton and his companions hoisted the 
hampers up and over the side. “ Just a little pie 

164 


EAGLE SCOUT 


155 


and cake and a few things that were left over 
from yesterday.” 

“Why, that surely is kind-the Scout¬ 

master began, but Mr. Castleton interrupted 
him. 

“ Not at all, not at all,” he said. “ You and 
your Troop did a fine thing for this town. You 
stirred folks up so that everybody is talking 
Scout. I, myself, have already talked with 
twenty or thirty boys all of whom are eager to 
organize a troop of their own. And I expect 
that we’ll have one—or the promise of one—be¬ 
fore the end of the day.” 

“ Then your picnics will always be a success, 
won’t they? ” said the Scoutmaster, grinning. 

“ Exactly. Well, Cedarville and Sandy Point 
are a long way off from each other, but the Scouts 
have brought them a little closer than they were 
before, I think.” 

“Yes, you’re right; that’s what the Scout 
movement does. And after all, what could be 
better than that? ” 

Before the Glen Gray slipped down the harbor 
many more villagers had gathered to wave good¬ 
bye. “ Good luck to you! ” “ Come again next 

year!” and “Take good care of yourselves!” 



156 BOB HANSON 

were some of the messages that sped them on 
their way, 

“ By golly/’ said Jimmy, “ that certainly is my 
idea of a real town! ” 

“ And if I didn’t belong to Cedarville,” re¬ 
marked the Egg, “ I’d go right back there and 
join that troop they’re forming! ” 

Though the boys laughed, most of them felt 
much as the Egg did, and they continued to wave 
to those on shore until the little town was no 
longer in sight. 

Several days later the Troop went ashore, and 
two of the patrols made a long trip of exploration 
into the interior. They did not return until 
almost twilight, and then they brought with them 
many new things, among which were a large slab 
of heavy petrified wood, some reindeer moss and 
some shells of the seventeen-year locust. 

“ I declare,” said Mr. McGregor, “ I didn’t 
realize that the hold below the forward deck was 
so nearly filled; anything else we get now will 
have to be stored in the cabin. However,” he 
added with a faint trace of regret in his voice, 
“ we’ll have to be turning homeward before the 
end of the week. It’s already close to the end of 
August.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


157 


‘‘ That’s so,” said Bob. “ But we sure have 
had a fine time. What’s that? ” he asked sud¬ 
denly. “ It sounds like a gasoline engine.” 

“ It’s a motor launch,” said Fred. ‘‘ There it 
is, a white one, and it’s coming toward us.” 

The boys turned and looked. A small launch 
was skirting the shore, coming from the direction 
of Sandy Point. As it drew closer they distin¬ 
guished two men in it. 

“ Wonder what they want? ” asked the Egg. 

At that moment one of the men—a tall fellow 
with a short stubble of black whiskers—stood up. 
“Ahoy there!” he shouted. “Got any grub 
aboard? ” 

“ We’ve got some,” Mr. McGregor replied. 

“ Could you spare enough for supper and 
breakfast for two? ” 

The Scoutmaster hesitated a moment. 

“ We can pay for it,” added the man, reaching 
into his pocket. “ What say? ” 

Bob, who was sitting close to the wheel, caught 
a glimpse of the other man as he bent over the 
engine. He was thin of body and pale of cheek 
and wore an old straw hat and a checkered suit 
that evidently had been too close to the engine; 
the coat showed several large grease spots. 


158 


BOB HANSON. 


“How is it you’re short of grub off here?” 
inquired the Scoutmaster in a friendly man¬ 
ner. 

“Had an accident; lost it,” replied the tall 
fellow, pulling his black slouch hat down a trifle 
over his eyes. “We can reach a town by noon 
to-morrow but what’s the use of going hungry 
till then? ” 

“No use, I guess,” said the Scoutmaster. 
“ Wait just a minute and I’ll have something for 
you.” With that he entered the cabin. 

The launch drifted closer, and Bob had a good 
view of both men. Evidently they were city- 
bred and unused to cruising; at any rate their 
launch was dirty inside and cluttered with fishing 
tackle, odds and ends of dirty clothing, and stray 
pieces of water-soaked paper. Both men ap¬ 
peared to be friendly enough and laughed and 
joked about their accident and the Mary Ann, as 
they called the launch. 

“ We’re sort of ashamed to go home now,” 
said the one in the checkered suit. “ You see, we 
went after fish, and we did catch quite a nice little 
mess; but back a space we ran against a reef, and 
overboard went fish and grub and all. The 
joke’s on us, and I’ll admit it’s funny. Nobody 


EAGLE SCOUT 159 

ever believes you when you tell about the fish 
that got away.” 

The Egg grinned, and the tall man turned to 
him. “ Nice boat you’ve got there. Where you 
bound for? ” 

“ Oh, we’re just cruising around,” replied the 

Egg. 

“ Great life, eh? ” 

“ Suits us,” said the Egg. 

The tall man was about to say something else, 
when Mr. McGregor appeared with two bundles. 
“ Here you are,” he said. “ This will see you 
through; that is, if you can eat crackers and 
cheese and canned beef. No—no; keep your 
money; we’re glad to be able to help you.” 

Both men were profuse with their thanks as 
they took the bundles. The man in the check¬ 
ered suit bent over and straightened, the engine 
throbbed, and five minutes later the white launch 
was swallowed in the darkness to the north. 

“ You didn’t put any of that picnic grub into 
those bundles, did you?” the Egg inquired 
anxiously. 

“ No, no,” replied the Scoutmaster. “ If 
those fellows are hungry, anything will taste 
good to them.” 


160 


BOB HANSON 

That evening the boys ate their supper aboard 
the sloop and, after the watches had been chosen, 
turned in early. 

One damp, foggy morning two days later the 
Troop reached a good-sized island a considerable 
distance offshore. 

“ Well,” said Mr. McGregor, “ I guess this 
will have to be our turning point. I reckon that 
we can spend the day exploring the island and 
then start on our long cruise south in the morn¬ 
ing.” 

Fred, who was at the wheel, steered the sloop 
as close to the shore as possible, and Bob and 
Ralph stationed themselves on the forward deck 
to look out for a good harbor. But on the land¬ 
ward side there seemed to be only a curved 
rugged shore-line with scarcely an indentation; 
and the tide, which was unusually strong, boiled 
among hidden reefs. 

“No harbor on this side,” said Ralph; “ and it’s 
clear enough that we can’t land if we anchor in 
this water.” 

The north shore proved to be no better; so 
Fred worked the sloop round to the east. There 
they found a heavy surf; though they could not 
see it clearly through the intense fog they could 


EAGLE SCOUT 


161 


hear it pounding wildly against the beach. Nor 
was there a harbor on the south side. However, 
Fred ran the sloop as near as he dared to a long 
sand-bar, and there the boys cast over the two 
anchors. 

“ Who’s going ashore? ” he asked. 

“ Everybody! ” cried Reddy. “ This is our last 
day exploring. Let’s see if we can break a 
record with the number of new things we can 
find.” 

“ You said it, Reddy,” cried the Egg. ‘‘ I 
have an idea we’ll find lots of interesting things 
on the old island.” 

“ All right, let’s go,” added Ralph and 
Tommy. 

“ Somebody ought to remain behind with the 
sloop,” said the Scoutmaster. “ Perhaps we’d 
better draw lots.” 

Accordingly they drew, using sticks instead of 
straws. The short stick fell to Bob. 

“ Hard luck,” remarked the Scoutmaster. “ I 
guess maybe I’d better remain also.” 

“No,” said Bob; “it’s fair enough. I don’t 
mind staying at all.” 

“ Well, I’m going to stay with you. Bob,” said 
Fred firmly. 


162 


BOB HANSON 


No amount of urging on anyone’s part could 
induce Fred to change his mind. So, carrying 
with them their collector’s bags, the others slipped 
over into water almost up to their waists and 
waded the length of the bar to the shore. 
“ We’ll be back by one o’clock at the latest,” 
shouted the Scoutmaster, and then he was 
swallowed in the fog. 

“ I’m glad Uncle could go with them,” re¬ 
marked Fred. “ He enjoys hunting around for 
things.” 

“ Yes, I’m glad, too,” replied Bob. 

For a while the two chums sat in the cockpit 
and talked pleasantly of the events of the summer 
and of how it would seem to go back to Cedarville 
again. 

“ We’ve learned lots on this cruise,” said Bob; 
“ lots of natural history, and we’ve learned some 
new Scout stuff too. Just wait till we reach home 
with this valuable cargo we’ve collected! ” 

“Won’t the folks open their eyes, though!” 
exclaimed Fred. “ I can just picture the inside 
of that museum when all these specimens are 
properly labeled and distributed in the glass 
show cases.” 

“ So can I,” said Bob. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


163 


The fog showed no signs of rising; indeed, dur¬ 
ing the short time that they had been talking it 
seemed to have grown thicker, so that the mois¬ 
ture was almost falling as rain. 

By and by they entered the cabin, and Fred 
broke open a box of crackers. They were sit¬ 
ting on one of the bunks, munching and talking, 
when they felt the sloop quiver slightly. 

“ What the dickens caused that? ” asked Bob. 

“ I guess the boat swung round against one of 
the anchor chains,” replied Fred. “ You know 
there’s a pretty strong tide running.” 

Again the sloop trembled, and Bob sprang to 
his feet. The next instant they heard a scuffing 
sound on the deck. In alarm Bob sprang for the 
doorway, but before he could reach it the heavy 
door slammed shut, and they heard the bolt slip 
across the outside. 

“ Neat work. Lefty,” sounded a voice outside, 
and for an instant Bob’s heart seemed to cease 
beating; he recognized the voice as belonging to 
the tall stranger in the dark slouch hat who had 
come to ask for food a few days ago. 

“ Fred,” Bob said in a tone that he hardly rec¬ 
ognized as his own, “ we—^we’re up against it. 

Fred did not reply. He pressed his shoulder 


164 


BOB HANSON 


heavily against the door. It did not budge. 
Then he faced his chum. “ It’s those two fellows 
from the white launch? ” he asked slowly. 

Bob nodded. Then he clenched his fists. 
“ Hey! ” he shouted. “ What’s the idea of this? 
Open that door! ” 

The scuffling of feet on the forward deck was 
the only answer. During the next few minutes 
the two boys suffered extreme torture of mind. 
They heard the chains of the anchors grate and 
rattle against the sides of the sloop; they heard 
the thud of the anchors themselves as they were 
dropped on the deck. But the thing that hurt 
most of all was to hear the sloop’s little gasoline 
engine begin suddenly to pound, and to feel the 
Glen Gray shake and then leap forward. 

The sloop’s cabin had two round portholes, one 
port and one starboard; but they were too small 
for either boy to do more than thrust an arm 
through. Bob peered from the one on the port- 
side, but all he could see was fog, gray and cold— 
and depressing. 


CHAPTER XVI 


CAST ASHORE 

As the sloop cut through the fog in a direction 
that neither Fred nor Bob could determine, they 
both felt utterly helpless. Every turn of the 
propeller was taking them farther and farther 
away from the island and their comrades—they 
were sure of that much. They could only guess 
at how the men had managed to come aboard 
without being heard. Under cover of the fog 
the white launch, which must have been in hiding 
somewhere along the shore of the island, had 
drifted down noiselessly with the current, and 
when it came alongside the sloop the two men had 
climbed silently aboard. 

Bob knew that neither he nor Fred was to 
blame for what had happened; yet he did blame 
himself and bit his lips till the blood came. He 
thought of the wonderful summer they had all 
had together, of the jolly picnic back at Sandy 
Point. He thought of the vast store of speci¬ 
mens beneath the forward deck and of how every- 
166 


166 


BOB HANSON 


body had worked to collect them. And now— 
now to have a thing like this happen! 

The bolt slipped back from across the door; a 
breath of cold damp air rushed in as the door 
opened. The man in the checkered suit thrust 
his head inside. “ Two of ’em, Slim,” he called 
over his shoulder. ‘‘ Just as I thought.” 

“ Bring them out,” said Slim. 

“ Step out, you kids,” said the fellow who was 
known as Lefty. “No one’s going to hurt 
you.” 

Bob’s face was pale, but his lips were firm as 
he left the cabin. Fred followed him stiffly. 

Slim, who was at the wheel, bade them sit 
down. “ Don’t look so sore,” he said, grinning 
on one side of his mouth. “ We’re not pirates— 
and we’re not fools either. Don’t forget that 
last.” 

Bob saw a sudden hard look come into the 
fellow’s eyes as he spoke; they seemed to be read¬ 
ing his very thoughts. Flushing slightly, he 
glanced at Lefty, who had come out of the cabin, 
carrying a small basket with food in it. 

Slim grinned again as he watched his partner 
make two bundles of it. “ Turn about is fair 
play,” he said with affected pleasantry. “ You 


EAGLE SCOUT 167 

fellows gave us grub a few days back; now we’re 
going to do as much for you.” 

“ Be sure and tell the big fellow, will you? ” 
said Lefty, looking up solemnly. 

“ What do you intend to do with us? ” asked 
Bob, glancing at the white launch, which was tied 
to the stern of the sloop. 

“ Why, we’ll just put you ashore,” replied 
Slim. “ You see, we’re not at all bloodthirsty 
like the fellows you read about in story books. 
But before you leave us I want you to tell me 
what’s aboard—I mean how much water, grub 
and gasoline.” 

“ There’s plenty of water and grub,” Bob re¬ 
plied evenly. 

“And how about extra gasoline? ” 

Bob hesitated. “ Four or five gallons,” he 
said at last. “ Maybe more than that.” 

Both men looked relieved. “ Where is it 
kept? ” 

“ Up under the forward deck.” Though Bob 
spoke quietly, dull unreasoning anger seemed to 
be boiling up within him, and he needed all his 
power of will to choke it back. 

The line of shore suddenly loomed slate-col¬ 
ored through the fog off the port bow, and the 


168 BOB HANSON 

boys realized that the sloop had all the while been 
heading north. 

Here’s your grub,” said Lefty, thrusting 
both packages into Fred’s hands. “ We’ll take 
you in as far as we dare; you’ll have to get your 
feet wet though, I’m afraid.” 

“ We’ve got oilskins up forward-” 

“ Get ’em by all means,” said Slim. “ No, no, 
just one of you go! ” 

Bob strode forward and entered the cabin. He 
was gone almost a minute, and when he returned 
with the oilskins his face was flushed. 

“ Now over you go,” said Lefty. 

A few minutes later Bob and Fred were stand¬ 
ing almost to their waists in cold water. The 
Glen Gray, with the little launch trailing at the 
stern, turned slowly and moved off northward 
into the fog. Slim, at the wheel, waved his 
hand. 

The two boys staggered up the beach and 
threw themselves into the sand. The fog pressed 
down upon them; the rattle of the shale on the 
beach was low and ominous. 

“ Bob,” said Fred at last, “ it—it makes me 
feel almost sick. Those dirty crooks! ” 

“ Well, they won’t get very far with the sloop 



EAGLE SCOUT 


169 


after the gasoline that’s already in the tank is 
gone,” replied Bob, springing to his feet. 

“ Why—^what do you mean. Bob? ” 

“ I mean that they’re going to have trouble 
with the engine.” 

Still Fred did not understand. ‘‘ Trouble 
with the engine? ” 

“ Yes,” replied Bob, and his eyes flashed as he 
said it. “ When I went to get those oilskins I 
got a bucket of water from one of the butts in 
the cabin and poured it into the drum of reserve 
gasoline! ” 

‘‘ By golly! ” cried Fred. ‘‘ Bob, we’ve got a 
chance, then! Come on, we’ll follow them! ” 

“ Wait a minute,” said Bob. “ I’ve been won¬ 
dering what we’d better do. We can’t be more 
than ten or twelve miles from the island.” 

“ That’s so, but even if we hiked back along 
the shore we couldn’t possibly reach the island by 
swimming when we came opposite it; it’s too far, 
and there’s quite a current. And what good 
would it do anyway? ” 

‘‘ You’re right,” said Bob. “ We’d better 
start after the sloop at once; there must be 
a town somewhere ahead. If so, we can get 
help.” 


170 


BOB HANSON 

‘‘ How much gasoline was in the tank? ” asked 
Fred. 

“ I don’t know,” replied Bob. I hope there 
isn’t much.” 

The two boys started north along the shore, 
walking as rapidly as they could in the wet sand. 
Very faintly through the fog they could hear the 
throbbing of the sloop’s engine, and the sound 
gave them courage. 

But at last it died out, and then they began to 
talk and make plans. There seemed only the one 
thing for them to do—^to reach a village and get 
help. 

“ But what about the others back on the is¬ 
land? ” asked Fred. 

“ They’ll have to stay there until we can send 
a boat for them,” replied Bob. “ I don’t think 
that Mr. McGregor would let anyone risk trying 
to swim the channel to get help from somewhere 
on the mainland.” 

“ Maybe they can hail a passing vessel or build 
some sort of raft,” suggested Fred. 

“ But I don’t imagine there’s much wood on 
the island,” replied Bob rather gloomily; “ no big 
trees at all. Of course a fishing boat might pick 
them up.” 


EAGLE SCOUT 


171 


“ They haven’t any food,” said Fred. “ Gosh, 
Bob, it makes me sick to think of the whole busi¬ 
ness.” 

‘‘ I know; it’s hard, and I feel it, too. But I 
think we ought to strike some sort of town before 
to-morrow night. They can live on berries and 
things for a few days.” 

It was a cheerless meal that the two chums 
stopped to eat some time later. The packages 
contained enough for two meals at least; but the 
boys, hungry as they were with walking, ate spar¬ 
ingly so as to make the food last as long as pos¬ 
sible. 

“ Possibly the men will run the sloop into the 
first harbor they come to,” said Fred hopefully. 
“ They may even stay there for a day or so.” 

“ I’m afraid there’s not much chance of that,” 
said Bob. “ Of course they may put in some¬ 
where and get fresh gasoline, but it’s not likely 
they’ll stay long. On the other hand, if this fog 
lifts, and a breeze springs up, they may use the 
sail.” 

But the fog continued heavy all the rest of the 
short afternoon; sometimes the boys could hardly 
see ten paces ahead of them. Yet they pushed 
on doggedly—over rocks and through thickets,^ 


172 


BOB HANSON 


sometimes wading knee-deep to save distance. 
Once they came to the mouth of a creek and were 
forced to swim. They carefully wrapped their 
precious food in the oilskins, which several times 
they had thought of abandoning, and, holding the 
bundles well out of water, swam across on their 
backs. Once or twice they both declared that 
they heard the muffled throbbing of an engine, 
but each time when they stopped to listen they 
were forced to admit that they had been mis¬ 
taken. 

Beyond the mouth of the creek that they had 
swum the wild growth of forest that had bordered 
the shore all along came down almost to the edge 
of the water, and they had literally to cut their 
way forward. Frequently they had to wade 
out into the surf to get round a densely-grown 
point of land. In an hour they made scarcely 
three-quarters of a mile. And now darkness was 
falling swiftly. 

“ This is terrible,” said Fred, panting. “ My 
whole body aches. I don’t think we’d better try 
to push ahead any farther in the darkness.” 

“ It wouldn’t be wise,” said Bob reluctantly. 

So they cut back a short distance from the 
shore and chose an open spot where the ground 


EAGLE SCOUT 


173 


was sandy. All around them oaks and pines 
grew in rank profusion. With the aid of sticks 
they made a rough framework and spread the oil¬ 
skins over it. “At least we’ll be able to keep 
some of the fog off us/’ said Bob. 

“ We may as well have a fire,” said Fred, and, 
reaching into an inner pocket, drew out his water¬ 
proof match-box. 

“ Do you think it’s wise? ” asked Bob. 

Fred was about to reply when Bob gripped his 
chum’s arm. “ Listen! What was that? ” 

From the direction of the creek came a faint 
throbbing sound. It ceased as suddenly as it had 
begun. A few moments later they heard it again. 
Then it ceased, and the heavy, saturated air was 
as still as the grave. 

“ The sloop/’ said Bob. 

“ Back in the mouth of the creek? ” 

“ It certainly sounded so.” 

For fully a quarter of an hour they sat there, 
listening intently, but the throbbing was not re¬ 
peated. 

“ I’ll bet they’ve landed and are going to spend 
the night back there in the creek,” said Fred. 
“ No fire for us. Bob.” 

Bob nodded. “ Do you know,” he said in a 


174 


BOB HANSON 


low voice, “ I have an idea that they were using 
the gasoline I fixed; did you notice how that en¬ 
gine seemed to miss and hesitate? ” 

“ I was thinking of that,” replied Fred. “ Of 
course,” he added, “it might not be the Glen 
Gray at all.” 

“ So much the better if it’s another boat,” said 
Bob. “Now I tell you what I think we ought 
to do. We ought to sneak back and see who it is. 
If it’s strangers, we can tell them our story and 
maybe get them to help us. If it’s the Glen 
Gray with those two crooks in it, well,—I don’t 
know what to think. But I’m strong for going 
back quietly and seeing how the land lies.” 

“ Well, I’m with you, Bob! ” exclaimed Fred. 
“ When shall we start? ” 

“ Now,” said his chum. “ That will be better 
than waiting here shivering and doing nothing. 
Never mind the oilskins. Let’s go! ” 

The two boys got stiffly to their feet and began 
the tedious task of making their way back to the 
mouth of the creek. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A VENTURE IN THE FOG 

Bob and Fred had gone not more than twenty 
yards before they realized that they had under¬ 
taken an extremely difficult task. If they had 
found it hard to make their way through the 
woods and undergrowth during the day, at night 
it seemed next to impossible. Several times they 
were on the point of turning back, but each time 
it was Bob that said, “ Let’s see if we can’t get a 
little farther.” 

Finally when they reckoned that they had gone 
more than half the distance to the creek each be¬ 
gan to feel a trifle more hopeful. 

“ You don’t hear anything, do you? ” asked 
Bob at one of their frequent pauses to listen and 
to recover their strength. 

“ No, not a sound,” Fred replied. “ This 
shore-line is worse than a jungle ; all I can hear 
is the snapping of twigs as we step on them.” 

“We’ll have to walk with more care,” said 
Bob; “ the creek can’t be far off now.” 

176 


176 


BOB HANSON 


At considerable risk they swung to the left 
where occasionally they could get round a bad 
place by walking in the water. But the tide was 
high, and the low irregular shore was treacherous 
in spots; they kept up among the trees as much as 
possible. 

Bob, who was in the lead, reached back and 
touched his chum lightly. “ I smell smoke,” he 
whispered. 

“ So do I,” replied Fred. 

Just as they came to within a few yards of 
what seemed to be an open space in front of them 
they spied a fire off to the right. It was so small 
that at first Bob thought that it was a lantern; 
but after he and Fred studied it for some time 
they concluded that it was a camp-fire. 

“ I’m sure this is the creek right ahead of us, 
Fred,” whispered Bob, “ and the fire is on the 
opposite shore of it up a way.” 

“ You’re sure that’s water out there in front 
of us?” 

“ I think so; but wait, and I’ll tell you for 
sure.” 

Bob stepped cautiously out into the open and, 
treading lightly, groped about till he found a 
small pebble and then threw it as far as he could. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


177 


Both boys held their breath and waited. There 
was a faint hollow plunk, and Fred squeezed his 
chum’s arm. “ You’re right,” he said. 

Now the question was, what was there to do? 
They felt reasonably sure that no one except the 
two thieves would be likely to put into such a 
place at night, and that out there somewhere was 
the Glen Gray and the white launch. Yet they 
could see almost nothing; except for the flicker¬ 
ing red patch of fire to the right the night was as 
black as the inside of a cave. 

“ If we wait here and lie low till morning, 
something may turn up,” said Fred. 

“ It seems the only thing to do,” agreed Bob. 
‘‘ Let’s hope the fog doesn’t lift before day¬ 
break.” 

At the base of a small gnarled oak they 
smoothed the ground so that they could lie down 
with some comfort. Both wished that they had 
the oilskins, for now, after their exertions, they 
were beginning to feel the cold. 

There was very little sleep for either that 
night; now Fred would rise and look about him; 
now Bob would study the fire, which apparently 
had burned down to a few glowing embers. 

“ If we could only swim out to the sloop while 


178 


BOB HANSON 


they are both ashore!” exclaimed Fred softly. 
“ Of course,” he added quickly, “ we may not be 
able to start her, if there’s water in the gasoline.” 

“ It’s worth trying anyway,” said Bob. “And 
the more I think of it the more I feel that we’re 
right about the whole business, Fred. Those 
crooks pulled in here to camp because they didn’t 
have a speck of good gasoline left. I’m almost 
positive of that.” 

As a matter of fact. Bob had guessed right in 
the main. Slim and Lefty had emptied the con¬ 
tents of the drum of reserve gasoline into the 
sloop’s tank shortly after they had set the boys 
ashore. The result was astonishing—to the men. 
First the engine began to miss fire; then it 
stopped altogether, only to start again as Lefty 
worked over it. For a while they had limped 
along; then Slim, whose familiarity with boats 
was not great, had transferred almost all of the 
gasoline from the white launch to the tank of the 
Glen Gray, That had helped, but still the en¬ 
gine continued to miss and stop frequently. So, 
fearful of spending the night in the fog off the 
open coast, they had made for the mouth of the 
creek. 

There Slim had insisted on going ashore, and 



They Made Out the Mast of the Sloop 

































EAGLE SCOUT 


179 


his partner had yielded to his wish. “ This 
blasted fog makes me shiver and shake all over,” 
Slim had said with an ugly scowl. “ What I 
want is a comfortable fire and half a dozen of 
these warm blankets the kids had.” 

So they had nosed up the mouth of the creek, 
anchored the sloop in the current, and gone 
ashore in the launch. After they had cooked 
supper they rolled up in the blankets beside the 
fire, which Bob and Fred were watching. 

Morning dawned slowly; the air was cold and 
still and damp. It was with much relief that the 
boys observed the fog still heavy over the water. 
In front of them lay the mouth of the creek; the 
tide had turned during the night; and now the 
water was washing musically against the shore as 
it hurried to join the more placid water of the sea. 

‘‘ The tide’s in our favor,” said Bob. 

‘‘ Yes, but there’s going to be a breeze, I’m 
afraid,” replied Fred. “ Feel that puff? ” 

“ Well, that will be in our favor, if we suc¬ 
ceed,” replied Bob with a cheerfulness that he 
was far from feeling. 

Gradually the sky became lighter, and at last 
they made out the mast of the sloop a little to the 
right. In the deceptive gray mist it seemed 


180 


BOB HANSON 


ghostly and unreal; nevertheless, Bob felt a thrill 
as he watched it sway with the current, now this 
way, now that. Farther to the right where the 
fire had glowed dimly there was nothing to be 
seen; the fog hid the opposite shore. 

“ Come on, Fred; it’s now or never! ” Bob’s 
voice was hoarse and low, but it was steady. 

They left the thicket and, going down to the 
narrow beach that bordered the creek, made their 
way upward till they reckoned that they were al¬ 
most opposite the dead camp-fire. Then they 
stopped and took off their shoes and their flannel 
shirts. After that neither would trust himself 
even to whisper. Side by side they stepped noise¬ 
lessly into the water. It was like ice. They 
waded out slowly till it reached their knees. 
Then they paused. 

A little breeze, blowing in infrequent puffs 
from the west, was thinning out the fog in the 
upper reaches of the air. The top of the sloop’s 
mast seemed to be swimming in long horizontal 
gray ribbons of mist like tobacco smoke in a quiet 
room. The low-lying hull appeared barely dis¬ 
cernible in the thick fog close to the water. The 
launch was nowhere to be seen. 

The boys began to swim. Fred was on Bob’s 


EAGLE SCOUT 


181 


left, using the breast stroke and kicking well be¬ 
neath the water. Bob was swimming on his left 
side, using the old Indian stroke that he had prac¬ 
ticed so often last summer and the summer before 
that. They would have made better progress if 
they had swum the trudgeon or the crawl, but 
then the splashing surely would have roused the 
men on the farther shore. It was slow work, and 
they had continually to fight the swift current; 
but with each stroke that they took they felt a 
little more confident that their plan would suc¬ 
ceed. 

The cold water rushing against Bob’s face felt 
good. Dead grass and twigs came swiftly to¬ 
ward him and then passed behind him out of 
sight. Once a long piece of eel-grass caught 
round his neck; he reached up and pulled it away. 
Then he turned and looked ahead of him. There 
was the sloop with her bow pointed up-stream, 
straining against the chain of the anchor. He 
could see the low cabin; he could see the sail 
furled along the boom. He also observed that 
the sky had grown lighter. 

The boys continued to swim easily and noise¬ 
lessly, fearful lest they should make a splash. 
Any little sound they knew would carry a long 


182 


BOB HANSON 


distance across the water. Now the sloop was 
only a dozen feet away; a few more strokes and 
they would be alongside it. 

Fred was the first to reach it; he grasped the 
starboard gunwale near the stern and noticed that 
the stern anchor was out. Bob had grasped the 
gunwale near the cabin and begun to pull himself 
forward toward the chain of the bow anchor. So 
far they had not made a sound. 

Then Bob heard a grating noise at the other 
end of the boat and guessed that Fred was climb¬ 
ing aboard. The loudness of the sound made 
him gulp with apprehension. An instant later 
he, himself, was climbing up over the bow, one 
hand on the smooth gunwale, the other on the 
cold links of the chain. 

Panting and struggling, he threw his right arm 
oyer the short bowsprit. A moment later he was 
scrambling on the deck. He felt the sloop rock 
from side to side as he got to his feet. Then 
Fred joined him. 

“ Up with the bow anchor first,” Fred whis¬ 
pered hoarsely. “ Then the current’ll swing her 
around.” 

With hearts beating wildly the boys seized the 
chain together. They pulled with all their 


183 


EAGLE SCOUT 

strengtH. The anchor held fast, and the Glen 
Gray moved slowly up against the current. 
Again they pulled, and the chain grated harshly 
against the side of the boat. The sudden noise of 
it made them redouble their efforts. Once more 
they threw themselves backward, and as the 
chain grated again they felt the anchor move. 

After that it came like the dead weight that it 
was, and at last they caught hold of it as it came 
up dripping, and dragged it aboard. The bow 
of the sloop began to swing to the right. 

“ Now for the other anchor! ” cried Fred. 

They hurried to the stern, but even as they 
went they heard shouts and the sound of splash¬ 
ing farther up the creek. 

‘‘ They’ve heard us 1 ” whispered Bob. “ Quick 
—Fred—quick 1 ” He was so excited that he 
could hardly speak clearly. 

“ Quick! Quick! ” cried Fred, and both boys 
seized the chain. 

In the swift current the sloop had already 
swung round with her bow pointed toward the 
sea. 

The boys were heaving with all their might on 
the chain, when suddenly a loud put, put—put 
split the morning air. 


184 


BOB HANSON 


‘‘ The white launch! ” gasped Fred. ‘‘ Let the 
anchor go! It’s no good to us. Cast the chain 
loose! Hurry!” 

Put, put, sounded again. Then silence. 

The boys let go the chain and felt the anchor 
strike bottom again. Bob began to fumble with 
the chain. At last he unfastened the end of it. 
“ Look out! ” he cried. “ It’s loose! ” 

The chain grated swiftly and noisily across the 
deck. Bob, looking over the side, saw that the 
sloop was moving with the floating twigs and bits 
of grass. And then to his horror he saw Fred 
stagger as the swiftly moving chain dragged 
against his ankles. 

For an instant Fred rocked on the extreme 
edge of the narrow stern deck; then with a gasp¬ 
ing cry he slipped. Bob heard his chum’s body 
strike heavily against the edge of the deck and 
saw the white spray shoot upward as he slid over 
into the water. 

For an instant Bob was panic-stricken and 
stood looking helplessly at the water that had 
closed over his chum. The Glen Gray was glid¬ 
ing swiftly toward the sea. Then he spied Fred 
come up a dozen feet astern. His face was white. 
His eyes opened and closed. He moved one arm 


EAGLE SCOUT 185 

limply and then turned on his back. His body 
began to sink. 

With thought only for his chum Bob dived 
from the rail and struck out into the crawl stroke. 
He reached Fred just as his head went under. A 
moment later he was swimming with him toward 
the shore that they had left. Overhead the sky 
grew lighter. The fitful breeze cut the fog and 
spread it like smoke. The morning was cold and 
quiet. 

Bob had little trouble in gaining the sandy 
beach, for Fred had not lost consciousness. “ My 
elbow,” he said as Bob pulled him up into the 
thicket. “ I think IVe broken it! No—no, don’t 
touch it! ” 

“ But—but-” gasped Bob. 

Fred passed his hand over his forehead and 
took a long breath. ‘‘ Look,” he said, pointing 
out into the rising mist. 

There was the Glen Gray free of the creek and 
a hundred yards offshore, drifting ever so slowly 
to the north. Bob felt a lump come into his 
throat. 

“ But what happened to the launch? ” he asked. 

Then both at once they spied it in the mouth 
of the creek. One of the men was in the bow; 



186 BOB HANSON 

tHe other was standing in the stern, plying a long 
oar. 

“ Out of gas! ” exclaimed Bob. 

Suddenly Fred seized him by the shoulder. 
“ Bob—Bob! ” he said. “ I can’t swim, but you 

—you- Can’t you reach the sloop and save 

us yet? ” 

“ Yes—but-” 

“ Go on! ” cried Fred, and, pushing his chum 
forward, he turned and ran into the thicket. 

Bob hesitated. “Fred!” he called in a low 
voice. There was no answer. He looked in the 
direction of the launch, which was moving stead¬ 
ily after the sloop. Then he turned suddenly, 
glanced for an instant at the drifting Glen Gray 
and ran down the beach. 




CHAPTER XVIII 


BOB LEAVES HIS CHUM 

An incoming wave knocked Bob off his feet. 
He struck out vigorously; there was no need for 
caution now. 

Fred, watching from the thicket, saw his chum 
making good headway toward the drifting sloop. 
Several hundred yards behind the swimmer and 
still in the mouth of the creek came the white 
launch. Apparently there was just the one long 
oar in the boat; Slim was plying it vigorously, 
using it as a paddle. Fred wondered whether 
they had caught sight of Bob. 

However that might be, he did not wait to 
learn; realizing that if they should land and find 
him he would be in a bad fix, he began to push 
forward into the dense tangle of undergrowth. 
His elbow pained him, and there was a good-sized 
lump on his right temple; but otherwise he was in 
fair shape. ‘‘ Well,” he said to himself, “ the 
thing for me to do is to push as far up the shore 
as possible and wait till Bob can pick me up—^if 
he can get away in the sloop.” 

187 


188 


BOB HANSON. 


At the next open space he came to he peered 
out over the water. The Glen Gray was nowhere 
in sight. Far behind him came the occasional 
sound of Slim’s oar as it struck the side of the 
launch; the launch itself was not to be seen. 

At the moment when Fred turned back into 
the thicket again Bob was climbing up over the 
bow of the sloop. The swim had taken almost all 
of his strength; and when he finally succeeded in 
reaching the deck he lay there panting for breath. 
Then he got to his feet and made his way to the 
cockpit. In one quick glance he saw the white 
launch less than a hundred yards away, approach¬ 
ing slowly. He bent over the engine and tried to 
start it. The motor did not respond. With a 
thrill of apprehension he glanced at the sail 
furled along the boom; the offshore breeze, slight 
though it was, would help if he could get the sail 
spread. But for one boy to loosen the ropes and 
hoist it was a pretty big job. 

The launch was slowly cutting down the dis¬ 
tance. He could see Slim’s black beard against 
his pallid face. 

Again Bob bent over the engine, and again it 
did not respond. A glance over his shoulder 
showed the launch barely fifty yards away. Al- 


EAGLE SCOUT 


189 


most in a panic, he rushed into the cabin and ex¬ 
amined the reserve drum; it seemed quite empty. 
However, he placed a tin bucket on the floor and 
turned the drum upside down over it; a thin 
trickle started from the opening and ceased as 
abruptly as it began. Less than a cupful! 

Seizing the bucket, he rushed back to the cock¬ 
pit and spilled the gasoline over the spark-plug. 
He shot another swift glance at the launch. 
There was Slim in the stern now, paddling for all 
he was worth; Bob could see the man’s lower 
teeth as he strained at the long oar. In the bow 
Lefty was waiting alert and triumphant. 

Bob bent over the engine and tried once more to 
start it. There was a loud report and then a suc¬ 
cession of noisy sputterings, and the Glen Gray 
shot ahead, put, putting steadily. 

He grasped the wheel and steered for the open 
sea. His whole body was suddenly warm with 
exultation ; he wanted to shout, to jump up and 
down and wave his hand triumphantly at the 
launch, which was rapidly growing smaller in the 
fog. And then without warning the engine 
stopped ! 

Springing forward he bent over it again ; there 
was no response. But a few moments later he 


190 


BOB HANSON 


was successful, and again the little sloop was 
heading for the open sea. “ They’ll never catch 
me now! ” he exclaimed. 

But the two men in the launch were not ready 
to give up yet. In the lifting fog Bob could see 
the oar rising and falling. 

For a few minutes the engine continued to 
function properly ; then it began to miss ; and 
at last it stopped again. But far astern Bob saw 
that the oar was no longer rising and falling ; the 
launch had turned back. 

Then as if to crown Bob’s victory, the sun be¬ 
gan to break through the fog. At first a dim 
patch of yellow, it grew rapidly brighter, until 
a few minutes later Bob was able to see a faint 
shadow of the mast on the roof of the cabin. 

After several unsuccessful attempts at starting 
the engine again he set to work to run up the sail. 
Fortunately the sea was calm, and he had no 
trouble in making his way about. After he had 
freed all the ropes and examined the lower blocks 
he began to heave. That was the hardest part of 
all, and the sweat ran down his face as he labored. 
Up went the gaff a few inches at a time. Then 
the gentle wind filled the sail, and it was harder 
than ever to hoist, for the sloop careened far to 


EAGLE SCOUT 


191 


starboard. But in spite of the difficulty Bob at 
last got the sail up and, after hurriedly making 
half a dozen turns with the rope round one of the 
cleats, seized the wheel. 

A good two miles up the shore Fred, peering 
from behind a rock, saw the morning sunlight 
flash on the white sail, then saw the Glen Gray 
swing to starboard and head south. “ Where 
the dickens is Bob going? ” he exclaimed in 
dismay. 

But Bob was heading south for a very good 
reason. He had not forgotten his chum. Fred, 
he knew, would work north and would expect him 
to run in and pick him up somewhere along the 
coast. That was exactly what Bob planned to 
do, but he had no intention of steering the Glen 
Gray within striking distance of the launch. In 
heading south, he planned to throw the two 
thieves off the scent. 

It was sound reasoning. With growls and 
sullen mutterings Slim and Lefty watched the 
sail until it was a mere speck against the south¬ 
eastern sky ; then they started back to the mouth 
of the creek for the stuff that in their hurry 
they had left beside the dead camp-fire. Collect¬ 
ing it and stowing it on board, they pulled the 


192 


BOB HANSON, 

launch well up on shore, covered it with branches 
and after a while set off inland in quest of a town 
where they could buy gasoline. How long it 
took them to find it, and what became of them 
after they did, neither Bob nor Fred nor any of 
the Scouts ever heard. 

When Bob had gone several miles to the south 
he made a long tack toward the open sea and then 
started north again. He could barely distinguish 
the long line of shore far off the port bow. No 
other sails were in sight; he seemed all alone on a 
great blue ocean. As he sat in the cockpit, hold¬ 
ing the wheel, he thought of many things. He 
thought of the rest of the Troop on the island 
somewhere a dozen or more miles astern and won¬ 
dered what they were doing; no doubt they were 
all mighty hungry by this time. He thought of 
the adventure of the morning; it seemed now as if 
it had happened days and days ago. But most 
of all he thought of Fred. Where on that 
long line of shore was he? How should he find 
him? 

The sun had passed almost overhead and was 
moving toward the west. The breeze was fresh; 
the air was clear and warm. Bob loosened the 
coat that he had thrown over his shoulders; it was 


EAGLE SCOUT 


193 


the Egg’s coat. “Poor Eggie,” he thought; 
“ I’ll bet he’s most starved.” 

Bob’s watch had stopped sometime during the 
night, but he could guess by looking at the sun 
that it was close to two o’clock. He reckoned 
that he must have passed at least two miles be¬ 
yond the mouth of the creek; but he continued to 
head north for a while longer before he struck in 
toward land and then went about. 

Cruising along less than a quarter of a mile off¬ 
shore, he scrutinized the dense foliage. Fred 
surely must be somewhere between him and the 
mouth of the creek. Some distance ahead of 
him a huge rock jutted out into the water, and 
beyond it he could see the land curving gently to 
the east. He was swinging the wheel to port in 
order to clear the rock easily, when he spied a 
flash of white on it; an instant later he spied an¬ 
other flash. Then he distinguished the figure of 
someone. It might be Fred—probably it was. 

While he was looking he saw the figure rise and 
extend his right arms out straight; there was 
something white in the hand. Down it flashed 
quickly. Then up it went obliquely, and the left 
hand followed it and hung poised horizontally 
below it. A moment later both hands were low- 


194 BOB HANSON 

ered, and up came the right one again in a hori¬ 
zontal position. 

Then Bob sprang to his feet and waved his 
arm. “Hurrah!” he shouted. “Fred—^he 
spelled my name by semaphore! ” 

It was Fred indeed. And now he was signal¬ 
ing “ O. K.” Half a dozen times he repeated it; 
and then as the sloop came within hailing distance 
he shouted: 

“All right, Bob! Come on; it’s perfectly safe. 
I’ve been sitting here for at least two hours.” 

Only then did Bob let go the sail. He made 
rather a poor job of manoeuvering the sloop to a 
point where Fred could climb aboard; but Fred 
did not mind the wetting he got in doing so. 

“ How’s your arm? ” asked Bob as he helped 
his chum into the cockpit. 

“ It’s pretty sore; it aches like fury when I 
twist it a certain way; but I don’t think it’s 
broken, after all. Gosh, how glad I am to see 
you!” 

“And you just bet I’m glad to see you! ” re¬ 
plied Bob. 

Fred dried his hands on the torn handkerchief 
he had used to signal with and then went into the 
cabin to find some dry clothes. 


195 


EAGLE SCOUT 

“ Let’s get out of here,” said Bob. I don’t 
feel safe any more unless I’m on the water far 
from land.” 

Fred grinned. “All right, let’s go!” And 
with one hand he laid hold of the ropes. 

As Bob steered the Glen Gray away from the 
land the first thing that Fred did was to look at 
the specimens. To his relief nothing had been dis¬ 
turbed; it is doubtful whether the men had taken 
the trouble to find out what was below the for¬ 
ward deck. They had managed to disturb things 
considerably in the cabin, however; clothing and 
scraps of food and paper were scattered round, 
and everything in general wore an air of disorder. 
And, of course, the blankets that they had carried 
ashore, and also two extra sweaters, were missing. 
But there was no great loss. Fortunately the 
boys had recovered the sloop before the men 
could do much damage. 

“ Hey, Fred,” shouted Bob, “ bring out some 
grub.” 

“ That’s just what I’m looking for,” replied his 
chum. 

“Ah, that looks good,” said Bob when Fred 
came out, bearing a pan with cheese, crackers and 
raisins. 


196 


BOB HANSON 


“And it certainly looks good to me/’ said 
Fred. “ I haven’t had a thing since last night.” 

Talking and eating, the boys sat in the cockpit 
as the Glen Gray made good headway down the 
coast. 

“ Do you know, Bob,” said Fred, “ at first I 
didn’t know what to think when I saw you turn 
the sloop and head south right after you got away 
from those two crooks.” 

“ I hope you didn’t think I was running away 
from you intentionally,” said Bob. 

“No, I didn’t think that. I guess I wasn’t 
very wide awake after I got this bump on the 
head; but when I saw the white launch finally 
start back for the far side of the creek I thought, 
‘ By ginger. Bob did that so they wouldn’t follow 
him up the coast and perhaps overtake me! ’ 
Isn’t that why you did it. Bob? ” 

“ Well, yes,” replied Bob. “ I didn’t want to 
risk trying to get you when they were so close. I 
thought we’d both taken enough risks for one 
day.” 

“ It’s lucky neither of those fellows had a gun,” 
said Fred. 

“ Yes, it surely is lucky. I guess they’re ama¬ 
teurs. Anyway, they’ll have a tough time of it 


EAGLE SCOUT 197 

now; for they haven’t any gasoline and only that 
big long oar.” 

The thought of the two men’s having to paddle 
the launch a dozen miles or so to the nearest town 
made the boys laugh heartily. It was easy 
enough to laugh at things now. 

“ Do you suppose we can find the island at 
night? ” asked Fred. 

“ I was thinking of that,” Bob replied. 
‘‘ There’s only about an hour of daylight left.” 

“ Maybe we’ll have to land and camp.” 

“ I hope not,” said Bob, grinning. “ I’m still 
land-shy.” 

The sun had dipped below the hills. The east 
was painted with streaks of pink and gold. Far 
ahead a purple mist was rising over the blue- 
green water. The Glen Gray sent the spray fly¬ 
ing as she bounded south. 


CHAPTER XIX 


WITH THE TROOP AGAIN 

Darkness crept over the sea. The stars ap¬ 
peared and were reflected like little points of pale 
fire in the dark water. Bob and Fred sat side by 
side, peering ahead. 

It was well after nine o’clock when Fred 
sprang to his feet. “ There’s a lighthouse directly 
ahead! ” he exclaimed. 

A small flickering yellow light shone low on 
the horizon. 

“ Looks like it,” said Bob, “ but how could 
there be a lighthouse so far out in the water? I 
don’t remember seeing any as we came up.” 

“We came up in the fog,” Fred reminded him, 

“ That’s so,” said Bob. 

They studied the light closely as the Glen Gray 
moved toward it. At the end of half an hour 
Fred said, “ That’s no lighthouse after all. Bob; 
it flickers too much.” 

“ Then I’ll tell you what it is,” said Bob 
quickly; “ it’s a camp-fire; and unless I’m greatly 
mistaken, it’s on the island we’re looking for.” 

198 


EAGLE SCOUT 199 

“ Maybe it’s a beacon that the fellows have 
lighted,” suggested Fred. 

But the light was neither a camp-fire nor a 
beacon. It was a great fire of driftwood that the 
Scoutmaster and the rest of the Troop had built 
as soon as darkness fell. 

The morning after the sloop disappeared Mr. 
McGregor, fearful that some mishap had befallen 
Bob and Fred, had ordered a lookout on the 
highest point of the island to watch for a passing 
vessel. None had come near the island, however; 
so that afternoon he and the boys had started 
work on a large raft, for since they were without 
food, their situation was critical. Except for 
shellfish and such small fish as they could catch 
off the shore, there seemed no food of any sort 
on the island. Fortunately there was much drift¬ 
wood on the northwest shore—^logs, the remains 
of several small packing cases, and sticks of 
all sizes. They found nails in many of the 
pieces. 

All afternoon they worked, talking little, 
laughing not at all; and at night they built the 
fire so that, working by the light of it, they could 
finish the raft by morning. 

The Glen Gray bore steadily down on the 


200 


BOB HANSON 


island until it was within a few hundred yards. 
“ All right, Bob, let go the sail,’’ said Fred. 

Down it came, and the boys secured it as best 
they could by the light of the lanterns. The wind 
carried them closer and closer to the land; now 
they could see figures moving round the fire and 
hear the sound of hammering. 

“ You were right. Bob,” said Fred. “ That’s 
the bunch, but what the dickens are they doing? ” 

“ Don’t know; building a boat maybe.” 

A few moments later a voice sounded from the 
island: “ Ship a-h-o-y! ” It was the Egg’s. 

Fred made his way to the forward deck. 
“ The Glen Gr-a-y! ” he bellowed. 

‘‘ Bob—Fred! ” came the voice of the Scout¬ 
master, and the two boys could see him standing 
in the glare of the fire. “ Easy—don’t run 
aground! ” 

The Glen Gray might indeed have grounded 
if Bob had not cast over the stern anchor. 

Fred, waiting eagerly in the bow, saw the vi¬ 
cinity of the fire become a scene of great activity 
—figures moving excitedly here and there, and 
everybody apparently talking at once. 

Bob secured the end of a stout coil of rope 
to the anchor chain and with the aid of it 


EAGLE SCOUT 201 

allowed the sloop to drift nearer and nearer the 
land. 

In a moment the Scoutmaster was up to his 
waist in the water. ‘‘ Hold it right there,” he 
shouted. “ Say, I’m certainly glad to see you 
two boys. Steady—look out you don’t ground.” 
Then he turned. “ Now, you fellows, let’s get 
that old raft out here. That’s right, Ralph! 
That’s right, Reddy! ” 

Bob and Fred saw their comrades lay hands 
to a hollow frame of logs. Working with an en¬ 
thusiasm that was in marked contrast with the 
way they had been working a few minutes ago, 
the boys pushed and hauled the unfinished raft 
into the water, and then Bob tossed a rope. The 
Scoutmaster caught it, and in a few minutes the 
sloop was moored to the structure and, one by 
one, the whole Troop was clambering aboard and 
shaking the two returned comrades by the hand. 

“ Bob—Fred,” said Mr. McGregor, “ it’s good 
to see you again. You’ve had an adventure, I 
know; did those two fellows in the white launch 
figure in it? ” 

“ They certainly did,” said Fred and pro¬ 
ceeded to give an account of what had happened. 

‘‘ Gosh,” said the Egg when he had finished. 


202 


BOB HANSON 


‘‘you and Bob certainly had a time of it! .We 
didn’t know what to think when we returned and 
couldn’t find the sloop.” 

“ No, we didn’t,” added the Scoutmaster; 
“ then I thought that possibly those two smooth 
fellows in the launch had played some nasty 
trick.” 

“ They certainly were smooth,” said Fred. 
“ Polite villains, I call them. But we fooled ’em 
—that is. Bob did mostly. You should have seen 
how close they came to getting the sloop a second 
time! ” 

“ H’m,” said the Scoutmaster thought¬ 
fully, “ you and Bob acted like heroes, both of 
you.” 

“ Bob saved my life,” said Fred simply. 

“ And if Fred hadn’t pushed me toward the 
water,” Bob replied, “ why, I guess we wouldn’t 
be here now.” 

While the Troop were opening boxes of crack¬ 
ers and cans of meat and vegetables in the cabin, 
the Scoutmaster examined Fred’s elbow. It was 
neither a break nor a sprain, he said, though at 
first he had thought that it surely was one or the 
other. He treated it carefully with ointment and 
put a bandage on it; and not until he had made a 


EAGLE SCOUT 203 

sling to go round Fred’s neck would he join the 
boys who were eating in the cabin. 

There was no doubt in anybody’s mind that 
Bob and Fred were heroes, especially Bob, who 
had abandoned the recovered boat in order to 
save his chum’s life. The two of them had to tell 
every last detail of the adventure. 

“ Gosh,” said Ralph, “ that sure will look good 
when I write it into the Troop history.” 

“ Well, trust Bob every time,” said the Egg. 
“ I’m no hero, but let me tell you it’s something 
to have a patrol leader like him.” 

“ Haven’t you forgotten your adventure 
with the flying chipmunk, Eggie? ” inquired 
Tommy. 

“ I had until you spoke, darn it,” replied the 

Egg. 

Everybody slept on board the sloop that night, 
but it was not till late that they went to bed. By 
that time the fire on the beach had burned down 
to a few red embers. 

They left the island early the next morning, 
sailing south with light hearts. At the first town 
that they reached they stopped and bought a fresh 
supply of gasoline. 

While Tommy and Alec were pouring some 


204 


BOB HANSON 


of it into the tank the Egg stood close by and 
kept his eyes fixed on Bob. 

‘‘ What are you watching me for? ” Bob asked 
at last. 

“ Oh, nothing,” replied the Egg. “ I just 
wanted to make sure that you didn’t pour any 
water into that tank.” 

The Scoutmaster laughed. “ That was a bit of 
quick wit on Bob’s part,” he said. “ But don’t 
worry now; I don’t see anything of a white 
launch.” 

There really was not much need of gasoline all 
during the trip homeward. Day after day the 
sun rose big and bright, and the wind continued 
fair and brisk. 

They stopped for several hours at the little 
town of Sandy Point; and while Mr. McGregor 
wrote and despatched some letters Bob and Fred, 
who had taken the bandage from his arm the day 
before, paid a visit to Mr. Castleton’s and learned 
that the Sandy Point Scouts had rented a club¬ 
house and were deep in plans for a football team. 

We’ll have a basket-ball team too,” said Mr. 
Castleton, “ and next summer we’ll probably go 
to a camp.” 

Some time later the Glen Gray passed in sight 


EAGLE SCOUT 


205 


of the town of Westerly, but nobody wanted to 
stop. The whole Troop seemed eager to reach 
Cedarville again. 

“ It’s been a mighty fine smnmer,” said Bob; 
‘‘ plenty of good fun and excitement-” 

‘‘ You said something when you said excite¬ 
ment,” interrupted the Egg. “ Plenty of it for 
you and Fred! ” 

“ But I’ll be glad to get back,” resumed Bob. 
“ I want to see what that museum is going to 
look like.” 

“ Yes, so do I,” added several others. 

Then one fine clear morning the Glen Gray 
slipped into the harbor at Covington. That day 
and the next were busy ones: the boys had to 
pack all the specimens and all their luggage. 
But, eager to be home again, they worked hard, 
and on the morning of the third day boarded the 
train for Cedarville. The specimens had gone 
ahead on the last train the night before. 



CHAPTER XX 


THE scoutmaster’s VISIT 

The Troop arrived at Cedarville shortly be¬ 
fore noon. At the station they found the dozen 
or more packing-cases that held the specimens. 

“ Scout Hanson, take charge of the Troop,” 
said the Scoutmaster. “ I have a little telephon¬ 
ing to do.” 

As Mr. McGregor went inside the station Bob 
lined the Troop up ready to march. 

“ I guess I’ll have to get acquainted with 
Cedarville all over again,” said the Egg. “ It 
all looks strange, we’ve been away so long.” 

“You’re right; it does,” said Fred. “Here 
comes Uncle now.” 

A short while later the boys were swinging up 
toward the business section of the town, marching 
comfortably at route step. Everyone looked lean 
and hard and several shades darker than when 
they had marched down to the station two months 
ago. Even “Nellie” Paynter had lost all his 
superfluous fat and looked as if he might be a 
206 


207 


EAGLE SCOUT 

formidable candidate for centre on the high- 
school football team. Bob and Fred, like most 
of the others, were lithe and strong and clear of 
eye. In fact, the whole Troop was in the best 
possible condition. 

Mr. McGregor looked much as he had looked 
right after he came back from overseas—big and 
rugged and erect. “ Well,’’ he said as they hiked 
along, “ everything is all arranged for. The stuff 
will go up to the museum this afternoon, and 
we’ll begin the work of putting the specimens into 
the cases to-morrow morning.” 

“ Where are we going now? ” Bob asked. To 
the old firehouse? ” 

“ Yes; and there we’ll disband.” 

Needless to say, the boys attracted much favor¬ 
able attention in the streets. Everybody in the 
little town knew them, and everybody knew what 
had been the purpose of the cruise they had just 
ended. Cedarville was proud of its Boy Scouts. 

At headquarters the boys put aside their 
heavier equipment, and then Ralph went through 
the formality of calling the roll. 

“ Are we all here, Ralph? ” asked the Scout¬ 
master, grinning. 

“ Yes—thanks to Bob and Fred.” 


208 


BOB HANSON 


“ Well, then I guess we can go home. I don’t 
need to tell you how well pleased I am with the 
cruise and with the way that two of us in par¬ 
ticular acted in extremely trying and dangerous 
circumstances. All right, then, I shall hope to 
see you all in uniform to-morrow morning at the 
museum at nine o’clock.” 

Bob and Fred walked part way home together 
and then at the corner of Bob’s street stopped and 
grasped each other’s hand. For a few minutes 
they stood there without speaking. Then Bob 
said with a trace of embarrassment: “ Fred, old 
boy, I—that is, it’s been a great summer, and— 
and I guess no two fellows could he closer friends 
than you and I.” 

“ That’s just what I was thinking,” replied 
Fred. ‘‘ We’ve had good times together, and 
we’ve been in some pretty exciting places to¬ 
gether. Let’s stick together always.” 

“Always, Fred,” said Bob, and the two chums 
clasped hands again and then separated. 

Bob had expected to surprise his mother, but 
he found her watching for him at the window. 

“ Bob, Bob! ” she cried as they embraced each 
other. “ I’m so glad to have you home again. 
What an exciting time you had, hadn’t you? ” 


EAGLE SCOUT 209 

Yes, it was pretty exciting,” replied Bob, 
somewhat perplexed. 

“ And you risked your life to save Fred’s? ” 

“ Why, how did you karn that? ” asked Bob. 

‘‘ Your father was talking with the chairman 
of the Board of Directors at the museum.” Mrs. 
Hanson could not help smiling. 

Then Bob remembered that the Scoutmaster 
had written some letters back at Sandy Point. 
“ I guess Uncle—that is, Mr. McGregor—told 
all about it,” he said. 

“ Well, now you can tell me while you’re eat¬ 
ing some lunch,” said his mother. 

And Bob told her everything; and when his 
father came home from work he had to repeat it 
all for his benefit. 

Mr. Hanson’s eyes sparkled while he listened. 
“ Good for you. Bob,” he said at the end of the 
narrative. “ The Cedarville Troop is a fine one, 
and I guess you’ve shown yourself worthy of it.” 

At nine o’clock the next morning the boys met 
at the museum, entered the room that had been 
set aside for them, and went to work without de¬ 
lay. Under the supervision of one of the em¬ 
ployees they opened the cases and began to sort 
and label the specimens. It was slow work, but 


210 


BOB HANSON 


it never became tedious. The boys worked hard, 
and while they worked they laughed, and talked 
of their experiences. Gradually the great mass 
of material they had collected was arranged and 
classified, and each specimen put into its proper 
place. 

By the end of the week Mr. McGregor said he 
thought that they had done all they could do. 
“ I’m anxious to hear what the chairman of the 
Board will say,” he remarked. “ I expect him 
this afternoon.” 

The chairman came just as the boys were pre¬ 
paring to go home. He was a large jovial man 
with a ready smile; and the moment he entered 
the room he looked larger and more jovial than 
ever. “ Why, I declare! ” he said. “ I declare! 
I really hadn’t expected anything like this. I 
knew that you boys would bring home plenty of 
specimens—but what a variety! Those pretty 
clay pots and dishes in that case—^where did you 
get them? Those books of plants—and what a 
fine assortment of stones and woods I ” 

The chairman seemed like a boy himself as he 
went round the room from case to case. ‘‘ And 
this is the Glen Gray?'’ he asked, stopping in 
front of a picture of the sloop. 


EAGLE SCOUT 


211 


“ That’s the boat,” replied the Scoutmaster. 

“ And this—now this is really a remarkable 
photograph-” 

At that several of the boys could not restrain 
their laughter, for the photograph was that of the 
Egg and the owl. The chairman joined in the 
laughter when Mr. McGregor had explained how 
it was taken. 

“ I declare,” said the chairman, pausing in 
front of a case filled with shells and other marine 
specimens, “ this is really a remarkable collection. 
Just wait till we open this place to the public! ” 

The words of the chairman were the finest kind 
of praise, and there was not a boy in the room 
who was not thrilled with them. They had spent 
an enjoyable summer, it is true; but they had 
worked hard also. It was a great satisfaction to 
feel that they had succeeded so well with their 
task. 

And later when the museum was opened to the 
public they were the objects of still more praise. 
Many enthusiastic persons declared that the Boy 
Scout branch was the most interesting part of 
the whole museum; certainly it was for the boys 
and girls of the town, who spent many hours 
there. 



212 


BOB HANSON 


Bob thought that he could not possibly be hap¬ 
pier no matter how hard he tried; but there was 
something else in store for him. 

One evening shortly after supper the door-bell 
rang. Bob’s father answered it. 

“ Why, good-evening, Mr. McGregor,” Bob 
heard him say. “ Come right in. Let me take 
your hat and coat.” 

Wondering a little at the visit. Bob greeted the 
Scoutmaster, and then the three of them went 
into the living-room and sat down. Mrs. Hanson 
soon joined them. 

“ I’ve been wanting to pay you a visit,” said 
Mr. McGregor, “ and now I have a real excuse 
for doing so. As you know, Mrs. Hanson, Bob 
and I have been pretty close friends for the last 
few years.” 

“Yes, and it has been just splendid!” said 
Bob’s mother. 

“ Well,” continued Mr. McGregor, “ I know 
that you will be interested in the good news I 
have for you. In short. Bob has been recom¬ 
mended for the Gold Medal of Honor, the high¬ 
est award that a Scout can receive.” 

“The Gold Medal!” exclaimed Bob, almost 
too much astonished for words. 


EAGLE SCOUT 213 

“ The Gold Medal! ” echoed his mother. Oh, 
Bob!” 

“ Yes. You know he saved Fred Ashleigh’s 
life this summer—^besides saving our fine little 
sloop from a pair of scoundrels. I tell you now 
because the Court of Honor doesn’t meet until 
after Thanksgiving, and it seemed a shame to 
keep him waiting as long as that. He has been 
recommended for it, and there is virtually no 
doubt that he will get it; otherwise I shouldn’t 
have spoken of it.” 

There was a moment of silence, and then Mr. 
Hanson said, “ Well, Bob, what have you got to 
say for yourself? ” 

Boh, it seemed, did not know just what to say. 
He had never for a moment thought that he 
would receive so high an honor, or, as a matter of 
fact, an honor of any kind. He looked up at his 
mother; she was smiling happily. 

‘‘ You deserve it, Bob,” said Mr. McGregor. 
Don’t worry on that account.” 

“ But,” said Boh, finding his voice at last, 
Fred was with me most of the time there at the 
mouth of the creek.” 

“ Fred, you must remember, didn’t save any¬ 
body's life,” said the Scoutmaster^ “ However,” 


214 


BOB HANSON 


he added after a short silence, “ he showed a 
mighty fine spirit, and I know that it took real 
courage for him to urge you to leave him and 
swim out to the sloop. So I am hoping that the 
Court will make a special dispensation in his case 
and award him the Silver Medal. He has been 
recommended for it, and I shall be astonished if 
he does not get it.’’ 

A quick smile came over Bob’s face. “ Fred is 
a mighty fine fellow,” he said. “ Won’t he be 
tickled! ” 

“ Bob and Fred have the kind of friendship 
for each other that makes life fine and beautiful,” 
Mr. McGregor said to Mrs. Hanson. “ You 
surely ought to be proud of your boy.” 

“We are,” replied Mrs. Hanson softly. 

But Bob did not hear her. Before his eyes he 
could see a white ribbon with gold mountings. 
At the top were the words “Be Prepared”; at 
the bottom, “ Boy Scouts of America,” and in 
the middle the word “ Honor.” 

The Books in this Series are: 

BOB HANSON, TENDERFOOT 
BOB HANSON, SCOUT 
BOB HANSON, FIRST CLASS SCOUT 
BOB HANSON, EAGLE SCOUT 


(/\'‘■'■’1 ^ w-V, :^" •'■ \ ■^V''f ."/.'}■’ '• •' "’V *v, •, ^‘t ■ ..V'‘ .■ .'! .•’'■••'f': , 

.'-'V*' k.: »•:'/, ■ V.'., ' ’■'• ■• • '■r',’ '. 


.'‘o'.''.' . '■ 

V \. .1 ■'..* i'' 

*' I . 


V. •■' 


< . 1 ' . U.. . ■ i ' • ; • ^ ■ i' w . ;# A* ^ \ f ‘< > ' , 

■■ A; \ ■’;. ' '"Aw.A.;- 

'■■. '.■■»: AW 

-. - ■ ‘ J 


^ - 


, .\< 


w . 'A 


'.U. :>■'•; ■'■,■■; ..'. r.'' 

' v;..,' ,v.- 

S k ^ ' 


f I M 


, ’ -! 

A > ^ A 


U 

4 

f 


.** . 1 
i i 
\‘ 

t 


‘ \ . 




.• v-i'-t *iA 

■A\'; A;- 

'' ■ -f' .* >■ ■' 

. * . * 'r 


vaa ■ 


% 


' i 


.f . . . , 


> I '. 


.’ ^ V 


^ . ' \ J' 




.1. 

• ' n' 


lt • ^ 




p va:: 




I 


•,, • I 


^ ' 


v;w 


^ . 


,. \ 


■ r 


' \ 


I 1 




r 

f ' ' 


' \ 


, \ 


f. I 


i. 

k' , 

' 'A 


w ' 


A ; \ 

-j 


j w 


'. .» A ';. 


■'•A 


u 


i 


' } 


. . . .. r ^ 


' . r* * ' ,<' 


A' 'A ' . .• , • 

V/'^r '• ' / 

h' ' • / ' ^A 


' ^ VI ’“(♦.A •/ .V 

s,A:V‘v:;a.‘<' --a 
A-“Av‘ 

i)/A' ;/ ••. 


! * y 


.^Vj’ 

. e . 


.1 .. .V 


'. .1 , 

I' 1 


.1; 


>‘V.'vV 
*.',•*' ! . '. ■' 

ud • ■ ‘' rh‘ 


• * 


' fA, 

‘ ' t ' ' I ’ ■> ) ' * 


' I ^ 'A *\ ’ 

I A' 


r. 


\ f 


•VAA'A' ,f, ", ' ^ ,,•. . 


^ ; V, I 

' 4 < I 

•I :\'* ‘ 


• f •; 


I ^ 


/ » 
t 


• i 


t • 1 

■ I • • 


»t 


I . . 


4 , r ' i 

■ '• ' ■ <'*■ . 


t 1 


xt'■ I'V'' I ■' . ■ , . ' ' ’ 

,;A.. .^' .; ■ / V ‘‘-V ' 

rh- ':■ i*://. ; ! v:l •‘..'0 V.,. •'- V' .<■ 




/• 




• i 

w. 


•>v^ 

V 


A 


’ AA 

*1 r 




» » 


M ' 


{ • • 


, 4 


<*.; J- ' 'r ^ 

'. .. '; ''.'.V 


, 


■; ■ !i 


I' 


I . 


1 . t 


.: - >! 




’•'7' IM ‘, '■ , ‘ 

■’ ••/;.' , 0 ? ■ ■ 

A A'-;,; 


f' 

' '-!' 




\ r 


I t 


i: A I 


f .4 t. 


^ , i 


i. / 


A-..V 

■«V'r . •; 





r T 



V 




i 


< f ^ 


. I' 




i/» *' '• ' ^ i\y J' f i' \ ' Vr'' 

■'■' ■' " 7^: ft 




I • ^ 

\' 




A'< 


r ( 


r/i’ 


■ '■■;''V' 7 :;r’’:TO! 

7 ' , ■' ^-'r ‘ . '? iV-V,/ ,'V„/' 


- 4 

V , »' 

; V ‘r ' I 


. ' , I r ^ .1 1 | \ } if l-J 

■ :'V7'7ft 


■ V ■, '. 

'u 


, r 


. J ’ ' »• ^ V 

■i4-/k-i‘- 

'^■'7 

k. .• r -, ' >» 




• V . 

. I 

I <> 


• ' ‘ -A .i 

,' , ♦ I '' ''‘ 

.• t ' , I ' 1 '• ‘*->1 •■ 


i ''< 


^ r 

0 * s 


^: 


iL ■ ’ t 


r . ^ 1 


■7; ' 


• t 


f * 


; '< ( 


L 


, '' ^ ■ 

' If. r 


• ki I /' 

I . V '' ' * 




»i ; ' 



l' 









I I 

1 I . 

*1 


4 


I 


* 


i :,• 




r 


K 


t 


/ 


if 




/ 














